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My Daughter 
Helen 






My Daughter Helen 


by 


Allan Monkhouse 

il 



Harcourt, Brace and Company 









COPYRIGHT, 1924 , BY 
HARCOURT, BRACE AND COMPANY, INC. 






11 \ .■ 
*> 


PRINTED IN THE U. S. A. BY 
THE QUINN & BODEN COMPANY 
RAHWAY. N. J. 

AUG lb 1924 ; 


©C1A800706 



a v o V* 



My Daughter 
Helen 


/ 




Chapter i 


T he other day I read Browning’s “ Strafford ” 
again, and the last line of it—“ O God, I shall 
die first—I shall die first! ”—left me meditating, rec¬ 
ollecting. For my wife had once said that she dreaded 
to die before Helen. Helen’s passion for her mother 
was strong and natural and yet strange. I was never 
jealous of it; children should love their mother best. 
I remember how, when we went out for the evening, 
Helen would leave a note or a flower on her mother’s 
dressing-table—a greeting for the return. The flower 
might be a buttercup, the note little more than a bald 
hope that the evening had been a pleasant one. Some¬ 
times there was a nosegay or an outpouring of en¬ 
dearments ; sometimes I was included, kindly or affec¬ 
tionately; she would turn from her mother to me 
fearing that I felt neglected. When she was very 
little she would cry when her mother went out, and 
even all the time till her return. It became quite a 
bother and I scolded her. The line, the effectual line, 
to take was that it distressed her mother. And poor 
Helen’s remorse when she had disagreed or quarrelled 
with her mother was tragical in little. Randal, her 
elder by about two years, was philosophical about 
Helen’s sulks and tantrums. He was capable of a 
critical detachment, which she feared; he deflated her 
moods. 


5 


6 


MY DAUGHTER HELEN 


When her mother died and the time for comforting 
came it was Helen who comforted me. Her mother’s 
illness became a long communion between them. In 
that deep intimacy there was no place for facile de¬ 
spair. If I was not formally committed to Helen’s 
charge I knew that I had been the subject of solici¬ 
tude. Perhaps they had worked out a philosophy to¬ 
gether; at least they had feelings and emotions in 
common. 

Helen’s composure surprised me, but I did not mis¬ 
understand it. What grief, consternation, reserves, 
wild questionings, were behind that aspect that was, 
with all its poor pathetic flaws, benignant? Already 
she had learnt to help, to reassure. I didn’t know how 
to help her. I could not give her sentimental make- 
believes and mere fortitude was too harsh. She was 
a big girl—about fourteen then, I suppose—and her 
embrace was an envelopment, a support. We wept 
together and sometimes our attempts to comfort one 
another were clumsy. We were like unpractised 
lovers. 

She was not frank with me: she could not be frank. 
Her mother had received all her girlish outpourings. 
There would never be such confidence again. And 
I respected it; I respected that mystery of mother and 
daughter; I didn’t want to be sceptical or analytic 
even when it seemed that a gentle pressure from them 
was exercised on me. And now I was conscious of 
my children’s commiseration, and it was precious be¬ 
cause it was beautiful in them. Randal and Helen 
consulted together about me a good deal. I was faintly 


MY DAUGHTER HELEN 


7 

amused when I caught them at it. They were young, 
and in their minds was that sad, baffling question: 
“ What is there for him? ” They wanted vaguely to 
make it up to me. Even Helen must presently begin 
to realize again that she was young. I believe she 
had her moments of remorse, of self-reproach, at the 
discovery. 

It was settled that I was to go on living at the old 
house, that Randal should return to school and aim 
for his Oxford scholarship, that Helen should return 
to school. On this last point we had a close dis¬ 
cussion. Helen was for giving up school and becom¬ 
ing my housekeeper or, as an alternative, going to a 
day school in the neighbourhood. Randal listened to 
my arguments, for I condescended to argue, and was 
gravely on my side. I was amused and rather grati¬ 
fied to find that his consent to my living most of 
the year alone was founded on his confidence in my 
character. He didn’t exactly say that, but something 
charmingly near it. And on the part of these poor 
young things I was presently to discover a dread that 
I might sometime marry again. I was old, but not 
so old as to make it impossible. I could imagine 
the good Randal conceding the right and Helen dis¬ 
tressed in a confusion of loyalties and affections. 
They sometimes got to the same point by different 
ways; Randal by justice and logic, Helen by her in¬ 
stinct for realities. But as time went on their appre¬ 
hensions were allayed. 

I settled down again to my work at the office and 
to those private attempts at literature which have, so 


8 


MY DAUGHTER HELEN 


far, failed to bring fortune or fame. One dreads 
the full confession of failure; the period of acquies¬ 
cence, indolence, the resort to mere ironies. In some 
ways this present record is a rebellion against that. 
I try to catch, to realize, to shape, something of that 
relation to my children which from now onwards must 
be the better part of my life. I suppose it will be 
a gradual compilation, and at first one sees things 
mainly in the distant past. Then, my thoughts and 
impressions were shared. We sat hand in hand in 
the obscurity of the hall when Helen first danced at 
the village entertainment. Two foolish parents were 
close to tears. And how happily we have laughed 
at Randal’s laconic, slightly excited “ Done it, Daddy,” 
when he won the scholarship! When we watched a 
schoolboy cricket match it was a devastating experi¬ 
ence when Randal got out; philosophy is not proof 
against such things. 

The house was too large for me when I was left: 
alone, but I was reluctant to leave it. The common¬ 
place garden had its beauties and its memories. With 
our two sycamores and the ash, the great horse-chest¬ 
nuts in the garden opposite, our bank which screened 
us from the road with its various shrubs, we had an 
outlook of multiform greenery. The road, not being 
a main artery, was comparatively quiet. Altogether 
it was a setting for quiet drama. 


Chapter 2 


Qo Helen was packed off to school and I was un- 
^ happy to think of her eating her heart out there. 
But her letters were not unhappy, and it seemed that 
she turned the bright side to me. The school was a 
great place for athleticisms, and with lawn-tennis and 
cricket, and presently hockey and lacrosse, she had 
the distractions she needed and more; I waited in vain 
for the spiritual or even the scholastic to prevail. 
Her letters were amazingly empty. They were con¬ 
cocted with determination, they were dutiful, and duti¬ 
fulness was not what I wanted from her. Their end¬ 
ings were emphatic; the tender, conventional messages 
were vigorously—passionately?—underlined. The let¬ 
ters did not always come regularly and (God forgive 
me!) I’ve had dreams of resentment, I’ve dallied with 
the luxury of resenting neglect by my children. It’s 
base. It’s treacherous. It’s a depressing part of the 
artist’s experimental habit, I suppose. 

Rarely, a phrase in a letter arrested me, and I came 
back to it, pored over it, squeezed more out of it than 
ever was in. She would wish to please me, and she 
even sent me poems sometimes. I read them eagerly, 
doubtfully, tried not to be the elderly critic, gave what 
I could of praise and incitement. More to the point 
were her drawings, and it seemed that she had a 
talent for design. She exercised it vigorously, whim- 
9 


10 


MY DAUGHTER HELEN 


sically; you could see something of her in this. When 
she came home for the holidays these faint expressions 
of her seemed to melt away. She was amazingly large 
and real. She was of about my height and Randal’s; 
we had measuring competitions, and there was little 
between us. I believe people disputed about her pretti¬ 
ness; I should have scorned to call her pretty. 

It was the summer holiday, and she flaunted it in 
light frocks. She bore herself as a goddess, and it 
was absurd to treat her as a schoolgirl. Perhaps 
there is something in Randal’s contention that God¬ 
heads must be qualified with humour. If you give 
your God human attributes they must include humour 
or you make a stiff, impossible figure of Him; and 
humour cannot be one-sided. Helen, among other 
things, was a joke. She used to be a little puzzled 
when Randal and I agreed that she was a joke. We 
had to make a sort of defence against her. 

Yet intellectually she didn’t follow in the brilliant 
Randal’s footsteps. Her schooling seemed to consist 
very much of imitations of the paraphernalia of boys’ 
athleticisms, of trumpery matters that resulted in 
badges and titles. Yet the school could point to her 
as magnificent, and you can hardly grumble at mag¬ 
nificence. You might put it to Randal, as a matter 
for regret, that she wasn’t learned and wise like him, 
but he, shrewd and magnanimous, would dismiss his 
great accomplishments with a gesture. Helen, he de¬ 
cided, would do. Helen was all right. It was char¬ 
acter that mattered, not learning. And if you sug¬ 
gested that at school character should bring persist- 


MY DAUGHTER HELEN 


ii 


ence and persistence learning, he would tell you that 
Helen was always doing something. You can’t be 
always watching your children and nudging them; 
perhaps, after all, the best kind of parent is the neg¬ 
lectful one. So, in semi-cynicism, one would surmise. 
I put it to Randal and he considered the point. And 
then with a courteous inclination of the head he said 
something nice about a happy mean. I felt like a 
blushing girl. Recovering, I realized that Randal, too, 
was a bit of a joke, though I didn’t tell him so. 

We had a summer holiday together at a Grasmere 
inn. It cheered me to see Helen and Randal so com¬ 
radely together. Yet every relation between two im¬ 
plies exclusion. They had their understandings and 
sometimes I was timid with them. They would receive 
me generously, but I shrank from a reception. I’ve 
gone through life shrinking and recovering. I’ve not 
been firm enough or simple enough. And, indeed, 
some of their understandings were compunctions, con¬ 
siderations about me. They had their kindly little 
plots, their subterfuges. 

Poor Helen wasn’t altogether in her element, for 
to trudge it over the mountains was never quite her 
line. We explained that the idea was to “ plod on 
and keep the passion fresh,” but she hadn’t a genius 
for plodding, though she was not without her persist¬ 
encies. And so sometimes we left her, as Randal 
said, biting her thumb, and we started rather sadly, 
lingeringly; sometimes our company or her prospec¬ 
tive boredom turned the scale, and she came with us. 
If we came home to her we were always curious to 


12 


MY DAUGHTER HELEN 


know what she had done. She had played bowls with 
an old gentleman; she had sulked in the churchyard; 
she had washed her hair and dried it out of the win¬ 
dow; she had drawn a picture of a hen running away 
from a dog; she had read a tattered old magazine. 
She didn’t talk for effect, but she made us sorry, and 
we would propose a day on the lake for the morrow. 
She wouldn’t have it if she thought we were pitying 
her. 

Once, when she was with us on the hills I had a 
tumble that shook me, and I laid down to rest. Helen 
seemed to come to life suddenly. There was nothing 
to be done, but she became a masterful figure. She 
questioned Randal sharply about distances—the near¬ 
est water, the nearest help—and contemplated me with 
an air vaguely professional. I think she was ready 
to carry me upon her back, and in the meantime she 
was firm and gentle in her ministrations. As I lay 
on the ground I winked at Randal, and when he made 
some reply to Helen smilingly, her scowl was so fero¬ 
cious that I began to laugh. She glared from one 
to the other, disconcerted. Poor Helen would affect 
to fear our subtlety, and did sometimes permit herself 
to be anxious about the point. In this case there 
wasn’t much point and it was ungrateful to laugh 
at her. The effects of the fall were nothing, I was 
ready to go on very soon, but Helen was alert now 
and guarded me very closely. Randal pretended that 
I had fallen on purpose to give her a little pleasure. 
He said that her nature demanded incidents, that she 
was not fitted for the contemplative life. 


MY DAUGHTER HELEN 


13 


Randal left us for a couple of days’ climbing at 
Dungeon Ghyll where his friend Antony Derwent was 
staying. Derwent was a year or two ahead of him 
in the school-college progress and a fine, big, athletic 
fellow. Helen and I went over to see them, for she 
could walk with an object, and so we made Antony’s 
acquaintance. Helen was very much interested. She 
was only a girl, but a girl is very nearly a woman, 
and this came to me with a pang. We watched the 
boys tackling a climb, and I think that Helen’s prac¬ 
tical sense revolted from it, but she developed en¬ 
thusiasm with great rapidity and wanted to join them. 
But we had to think of our homeward journey, and 
I felt relieved to get away. She, I could feel, found 
it very flat to pad off with me, leaving young manhood 
behind. Bitterly I felt my inadequacy. It seemed that 
our holiday was spoilt; the placid face of it was de¬ 
ranged. I saw before me enormous difficulties; the 
control, the direction of all manner of ardencies, rash¬ 
ness. Or the judicious, generous refrain from inter¬ 
ference? A father is nothing if he is not magnani¬ 
mous. Helen cheered up I’m sure, even if she didn’t 
show it, when I said that we must have Antony over 
some time. She asked whether I meant here or at 
Darley. I had meant here, but I said “ Both.” Yes, 
I was magnanimous. The time would come when 
I should want Helen too much to myself. I must 
fight against that. 

Yes; Antony caught the eye, and what does that has 
a good chance of staying in the memory. Helen and 
I talked correctly about the sound, English type. 


14 


MY DAUGHTER HELEN 


In our superior fashion we ridicule the public-school 
product nowadays, but it turns out some gracious boys. 
They are not strictly utilitarian? That is hardly the 
case against them. Graciousness is good, but you can’t 
do without a bony structure; you must be ready to 
die on the point of honour, but it is well to know how 
to live; I was to learn presently that Antony was no 
fool, but when I told Helen that he was a pleasant, 
athletic fellow I felt that there was some degree of 
depreciation in this, and that it was hardly fair. She 
spoke of him with frank admiration; she had none 
of the subterfuges of the self-conscious misses con¬ 
fronted with a staggering young man. We were pleas¬ 
urably tired, we became placid and I think we were 
happy together. My spirits rose and when, after 
dinner, we came into contact with other guests at the 
hotel I played what Randal called my role of the agree¬ 
able rattle. I made them laugh, I laughed myself, 
I made Helen laugh. And the truth is that I was 
showing off before her. 


Chapter 3 


1\ 1 y ambitions began to take on new form or new 
-L*-* colour; I wanted to do something for the sake 
of my children. Here had I been slogging away at 
novels and plays for the last twenty years, and the 
accomplishment in terms of fame or money was 
trifling. And of course there was the implication, 
in critical work or in casual conversation, that the 
distribution of these rewards was not strictly accord¬ 
ing to merit. So, almost embarrassingly, the loyal 
young people championed me. I’ve never liked the 
part of the neglected genius, never put in a claim for 
it, and there’s something ignoble irt explaining that 
success is spurious because it hasn’t come to you. One 
can’t be always pointing out that reticence, distinc¬ 
tion, isolation, are virtues, but, indeed, the young folk 
—bless ’em—would go farther than I ever wanted to 
go in that direction. They would express their con¬ 
tempt for the gross thousands or hundreds in favour 
of the lean and honourable tens. Yet I could see them 
clutching pathetically at any odd piece of commenda¬ 
tion. Randal’s “ I see, Daddy, you are mentioned in 
the Tribune this week,” had the proper casual tone, 
and a remittance from America—rather more solid 
than usual—was hailed by Helen as a turning of the 
tide. Poor Helen had plenty of natural flamboyancy 
and, desiring the blaze of success, she would look into 
15 


i6 


MY DAUGHTER HELEN 


her soul to see what was wrong. If she did follow 
Randal in a rather comic depreciation of the public 
taste, she insisted that the neglect of my works was 
a particular shame. The desire grew to have some¬ 
thing to show them, something striking and grandiose. 

We should all have enjoyed a howling success. If 
one were but built that way! I puzzled Helen by 
telling her that I felt rather apologetic toward some 
of my prosperous contemporaries. I wanted to tell 
them that I wasn’t half as contemptuous of them as 
they might suppose. She didn’t care for subtleties 
of superciliousness. I listened to the kindly advice 
of friends who proposed the larger scheme, the more 
genial attitude. Why should the man of meagre tal¬ 
ent attempt refinements that only genius could make 
tolerable? If you are second-rate, why not be cheer¬ 
fully practicable ? There’s something in it, and some¬ 
times it has seemed that there’s everything in it. But 
it’s such a bore not to do your best. If one could 
knock off the pot-boiler quickly and make something 

of it, why then- But a day might come when the 

astute Randal could not stifle his judgment with loy¬ 
alty. I should dread the time when he might say, 
“The old man’s getting a bit thin,” though perhaps 
that’s not quite how he would say it. And one could 
see Randal going on for a long way loyally accepting. 
I could always face him while I did my best. 

Sometimes one built castles in Spain and sometimes 
reversed the process and made dungeons of gloomy 
thoughts. And, of course, it wasn’t as bad as that. 
The young people would insist on being too proud of 




MY DAUGHTER HELEN 


17 


me. If I deprecated this, the humility became an 
added virtue. They pinned their faith to the narrow 
band of friendly critics; they resented the breath of 
depreciation, and any hearty blast of it was madness 
or malignity. And—talking of loyalties—I must be 
loyal to a faith so unswerving; yes, I should dread 
Randal’s reception of a pot-boiler. 

Helen could appreciate in flashes. Her reading was 
a mixture of masterpieces and rubbish, with a pre¬ 
ponderance of rubbish. In real life she can be prac¬ 
tical and measured, but imaginatively she is unsure; 
she is at the mercy of chance emotions. Sometimes in 
the holidays the three of us had Shakespeare read¬ 
ings, and though Helen was not keen on the sport, 
she would join us graciously. We attacked big things, 
and Helen was certainly an inadequate Cleopatra. I 
think she found her deficient in the Public School 
spirit. Yet the play troubled her. I found her after¬ 
wards poring over it. She asked me if women often 
spoilt men’s lives. Wasn’t it Antony’s own fault? 
Why did I think him fine ? I suggested that it’s some¬ 
thing to be a fool on such a colossal scale. 

“ Is there anything to be said for her?” asked 
Helen. 

“ There’s all that Antony said.” 

She reflected on this and then: “ He liked saying 
such things; he would have said them to some one 
else.” 

“ The point is that he wouldn’t.” 

“If you admire women like that, what’s the use 
of being good? ” 


18 MY DAUGHTER HELEN 

“ It’s a work of art that we admire, my dear. It’s 
Shakespeare.” 

“ Well, Shakespeare’s one of you, Daddy. You all 
make a great fuss about Cleopatra and Mary, Queen 
of Scots, and Helen of Troy. Do you want us to be 
like them ? ” 

“ They’re spectacular, legendary figures that we’ve 
agreed to be romantic about.” 

“ It’s funny,” she said, “ that they should all be 
bad.” 

“ Oh, but there are others,” I said. “ Joan of Arc 
and Cordelia and Florence Nightingale.” 

She laughed, and I was afraid she might ask me 
whether I meant the Lady with the Lamp or Mr. 
Strachey’s Florence Nightingale. 

Then she said: “ I hate Cleopatra. I hate wanting 
to be like her.” 

“ I don’t think you’ll be like her,” I said. 

“ What shall I be like, Daddy?” 

“You’ll be helpful.” 

“ Oh, bother! ” she said. 

“Don’t you want to be?” 

“ It’s what I’m afraid of myself.” 

“ And you’d rather be bringing Antonys to grief ? ” 

“ How could she do it ? ” said Helen. 

I think Randal fancied his vigorous reading of 
Antony’s passion—I took most of “ the field ”—and 
for some days the young people exchanged phrases 
from the play—■“ Let’s have one other gaudy night,” 
“ I give you joy of the worm,” and so on. We were 
all, in a way, possessed by it. But when the real 


MY DAUGHTER HELEN 


19 


Antony—Antony Derwent—came to pay his visit, all 
this seemed to be forgotten or overlaid. And yet I 
had a foolish, lingering idea that Helen surveyed this 
Antony as a possibly heroic figure, possibly to be aban¬ 
doned and betrayed. He had a grandeur of limb and 
pose and the face of a kindly Englishman. In the 
event he was to pay us many visits and, indeed, de¬ 
serting his Manchester suburb, to be very much 
“about.” His people were in the South, but some 
theory of “ provincial openings ” had brought him 
to the Chancery bar in Manchester. He was a lawn 
tennis player of some local reputation, and he often 
accompanied Helen and Randal to our Sports Club. 
Helen had left school, and had decided against col¬ 
lege on the two-fold reason that she wasn’t clever 
enough and that I must be looked after. So she had 
the official position of housekeeper, which wasn’t very 
onerous, and gave herself a little orgy of fun, sport 
and sunshine, fine weather delights. Randal, who 
was always alive to serious or sombre aspects of Helen, 
said she was on the spree, and I think we all felt 
that this was a phase that couldn’t last. With most 
girls of her class such an experience comes to an end 
with marriage, and this became an apprehension to 
me. I watched her with a jealous eye. I could re¬ 
call tentative jealousy or distaste when, many years 
before, the little girl had played at the stupid kissing 
games, “ Shy Widow ” or “ Postman’s Knock,” which 
unimaginative generations pass on. And now I was 
excessively sensitive about the manners, the approach, 
of the young men. I don’t think I was an exacting, 


20 


MY DAUGHTER HELEN 


heavy-handed father, but I had to school myself, and 
sometimes she would divine what I didn’t say. Her 
own bearing, I felt, was beyond reproach, and yet in 
reasonable moments I told myself that it couldn’t 
be, it shouldn’t be; the world doesn’t get on by means 
of correct attitudes. 

I craved her confidence; I wanted her to talk to me 
of herself; all my life I have asked from her more 
than she would give. And she seemed to know it 
and to be sorry for me. I suppose that the deep 
difference between us is that she is a woman and I a 
man. I think that she will never know, now that her 
mother is gone, a perfect confidence. She had happy 
school friendships, many contacts of a little more than 
kin and less than kind; nothing very deep. She had a 
trick of pondering, of a sombre concentration, and it 
gave an illusion of power; you could believe that she 
was self-supporting. And yet at times I was afraid 
of her becoming a rattle, I was afraid of some rash 
committal; I was afraid, always afraid. I hid it 
pretty well, I think. We used to have nice conver¬ 
sations, sometimes with cheerful endings. We would 
discuss—perhaps the initiative was mainly on my side 
—the question of rigid rules of conduct as against the 
cultivation of a spirit with natural reactions. Some¬ 
times I was dreadfully inopportune. I remember an 
occasion when we had returned from the tennis ground 
on a bright summer day. There was a scrap of leisure 
yet before us, and I was unwise enough to force the 
note. The irrelevance, the mustiness of Milton or 
Keats—mere books—was opposed to the brilliance of 


MY DAUGHTER HELEN 


21 


life that we had just left behind. It was unimagina¬ 
tive of me, and poor Helen cried out in despair. She 
was in tears. “ I’m no good,” she said. “ I care for 
that, I hate this. No—not hate.” (She feared to- 
hurt me.) 

And I saw it, I felt it too, and IVe often felt it. 
What is this life of the spirit, represented by old books, 
mere words, to the entrancing rush of crude young 
life? The poets wrote in immortal phrases, I dare 
say. But there is this strong obsession of white-clad 
figures striving in the game, of the sun shining on 
gay surfaces, of careless, easy contacts with your 
friends. The life that absorbs you is the life that 
matters. The garish day effaces that dim twilight 
of old shapes and memories enshrined in books. I 
knew too well what it is to be restlessly indifferent to 
books. We take them up; we lay them down; we 
come back to them. And Helen saw in me a task¬ 
master who did not understand what she was feeling 
now. I tried to explain; I abased myself. She thought 
I was just trying to be kind. Rather, I was trying 
to be just. And I did make her see something of 
what I felt. I forced it on her; I compelled her atten¬ 
tion when she would have subsided into some mood 
of facile self-reproach. Why wouldn’t she understand 
that we faced the world together ? I think I was ready 
to waive the trumpery parental authority—at any rate, 
till some need or menace arose. I wanted intimacies 
and to be intimate, it seems, is to be equal. I was her 
natural protector and she was mine. 


Chapter 4 

S o we had a share of bright and jolly life in the 
summer weather and, naturally, ardent young men 
were a part of it. In the privacy of my mind I could 
and did, ridiculously enough, regard them as rivals. 
Of course there is always the parents’ natural fear 
of misalliance, but I may confess to fear rather of 
the eligible. Kindly ladies of the neighbourhood would 
have been ready, doubtless, to help, to warn. The 
lack of likely young men, the prevalence of the un¬ 
likely, have often been the cause of removals, even 
of the sale of houses. Prudent mothers look about 
them and think it is time to be off; proximity is enor¬ 
mously more potent than suitability. It was for me 
to be the prudent father, but I knew that Helen was 
no flighty miss; her assured dignity of bearing gave 
one confidence. Yet she was capable of generous mis¬ 
take. 

One meets gallant young rebels to whom prudence 
is the meanest of vices. And, indeed, what seems to 
the father a calamity may bring to the child the full¬ 
ness of life. It is the irony of the human struggle 
that it is perpetually against the trials that may exalt 
it. We are always aiming at safety, and safety is 
the most insidious of dangers. It is just a restful 
idea, an idea that one must have. We mustn’t take 
our children too seriously. We can but throw them 
22 


MY DAUGHTER HELEN 


23 


into the stream to sink or swim. We want them to 
be paragons, but you cannot cherish a paragon ten¬ 
derly. We want to assure their future, but only they 
and the gods can do that. We would keep places for 
them, tie up money for them; we are of little faith. 
The family sits round the table and in their common 
life they are as one. Disaster to any is unthinkable, 
even separation is but a vague menace. But they 
separate, they go here and there in the world, they 
die and fail. Safety, confidence, family pride, are 
illusions of the brave heart. They are illusions, but 
the illusion is the present reality. 

I was the victim of moods. I would let Helen go 
her own way or I would have her go my way. I 
trusted her to value the young men who came about 
her, and yet I wanted to superintend the valuation. 
I hadn’t much fear of her marrying beneath her, as 
we say. She wasn’t innocent of the snobbery, social 
or intellectual, that is bred in the high-class boarding- 
schools, but her niceties generally were temperamental 
and aesthetic. She wouldn’t mistake the shopwalker 
for the gentleman, and it jarred my honest radicalism 
that she should be too ready with the distinction. 
In Darley we had the usual suburban dread of the 
taint of retail business; though, indeed, a shop might 
be so big as to accomplish a kind of social purifica¬ 
tion; did not a super-grocer become an illustrious 
yachtsman and hob-nob with kings? At the Sports 
Club, however, we had a reasonably high standard 
of selection. We were all nice or had some claim to 
niceness. And Helen knew her way about among 


24 


MY DAUGHTER HELEN 


these specious young men in flannels; her distinctions 
were, very much, mine. I’m afraid I was guilty some¬ 
times of cunning disparagements, but I didn’t want to 
be ungenerous or unfair. I was sensitive to her dis¬ 
appointments with me and -hated to be a drag upon 
the impulses of youth. She could read me sometimes. 
“ You’re afraid of young men, Daddy,” she said. 

“ Not young men but a young man,” I said. 

“ I don’t think I’m a fool, Daddy.” 

“ You haven’t a mother, my dear.” 

She pondered this and then: “ It makes you feel 
awfully responsible. I wish I could reassure you.” 

“ I do feel sure,” I said, “ when I think of your 
character and your tastes—likings.” 

“ Well, then-” 

“ And then I look at you and think what a won¬ 
derful creature you are, and I’m full of doubts again.” 

“ What nice, puzzling things you say, Daddy! ” 

“ Where’s the puzzle ? ” 

“ Well, wouldn’t the danger be in a wonderful 
young man? ” 

“ You’ll create him. You’ll draw him from some¬ 
where. You’ll inspire him.” 

“ Oh, Daddy! You don’t give them a chance. 
You’re so much nicer and cleverer. They can’t say 
these charming things.” 

And I was happy in her flattery. This was a game 
that I could play, and it made me feel light as air. 
We were walking in the garden, and she stopped to 
disentangle a plant while I sauntered on. Yes, I was 
light and happy, and I felt that she had pride in me 



MY DAUGHTER HELEN 25 

and confidence. I had not been a dull, exacting father; 
I would not close the door to glories and delights. 
My affection for her was humble and pathetic; I 
became sentimental. She came tripping up to rejoin 
me, and I took her arm and said: “ We’ll keep the 
young man at bay a little longer, then.” 

“ You hope that he will never come,” she said. 

“ No, no,” I cried; but she said, sullenly, “Yes.” 

It was an instinctive protest and I was startled, 
shaken out of my complacency. All was wrong be¬ 
tween us. I said heavy-handed, liberal-minded things. 
I believe I said that Nature must have its way. I 
got out of the limelight hastily. And she was quick 
again to feel my mood; she recoiled from her posi¬ 
tion, she plied me with reassurances, she was won¬ 
dering how far she could go in exalting me at the 
expense of ardent youth. It was rather amusing. I 
soon worked myself into a position of impregnable 
wisdom and sympathy. I puzzled her again, for a 
complete frankness was impossible. I had a foretaste 
of the bitterness of loss. 

And, indeed, it seemed that the wonderful young 
man was here already. Antony Derwent was about 
a good deal and we all liked him. His clothes were 
all right and Helen (my habitual attitude to her at 
this stage is the lightly sarcastic, but I abandon it 
readily, frequently) had the sense of clothes; poor 
old Randal with his fearsome combinations of old 
garments was something between a joke and a trial 
to her. Antony’s bearing was an exquisite conven¬ 
tion with a Public School basis. He was as handsome 


26 


MY DAUGHTER HELEN 


as you please, and big, easy, graceful, masterful. To 
fall in love with him was too obvious. It was what 
any highly-modernized girl would see must be avoided. 
Helen was imperfectly, superficially modernized. She 
could be frank, she liked the likeable, she took short 
cuts. Oh, he was a dangerous fellow! He was all 
right and his people were all right; he was so very 
right and attractive that the world would certainly 
make way for him. At the Chancery bar he would 
be a success; solicitors would send him briefs because 
he was such a nice fellow, and keep on doing it when 
they found he was no fool. A very dangerous fellow! 

His lawn tennis had power and delicacy, and his 
friends believed that practice in the right company 
would make him great. Helen and he made a for¬ 
midable pair, and though she was inclined to be a 
wild player, she was at her best with Antony; he 
dominated her; you might say that he subdued her to 
his rhythm. They beat what was brought against 
them, and Helen liked that. Of course she couldn’t 
always play with him, and it worried her a little to 
play against him. Far too often she banged the ball 
at him, and he scored coolly. I’vie watched sometimes 
an undercurrent between them; as they’ve played 
against one another I’ve detected or divined little 
antagonisms, protests, petulancies, concessions. She 
could always rely on his generosity. Ah, but they 
were just young folks playing their game! I put too 
much into this game of life. I spin fancies and take 
them for positive, objective bulk. It comes over me 
sometimes that my Helen exists only in my mind. 


MY DAUGHTER HELEN 


27 


She’s a hoydenish girl, a Dulcinea. (This is blas¬ 
phemy—the shallow kind that doesn’t hurt.) I do 
sometimes see her as strangely limited and material. 
I am not always at my best. It makes me miserable 
to cheapen her. I’ve had moments of humiliation and, 
what is worse, of aridity. And, sooner or later, I 
recover. The image is the truth. I can never express 
the beauty of her life in my sight. She will have 
lovers, but never one like me. 

She was pleased when I spoke heartily of Antony, 
and she wasn’t self-conscious. Of course he wasn’t 
an intellectual, but he wasn’t a duffer anyway, and 
Helen was three parts Philistine herself. And one 
doesn’t want to be confined within these “ literary and 
artistic circles.” Good raw stuff is the thing, and one 
can turn it over in the mind. But Antony and Helen 
were, in their way, exquisite. They were big and 
exquisite, or so I would have them. And yet what 
excursions my mind made! What experiments! I 
had the thought that if Helen were to marry such a 
man he could not give her all she wanted. She had 
intuitions, ideas, beyond the range of Antony. She 
and I had our secret and permanent understandings. 
Grossly, I could put it to myself that he could never 
cut me out. 

Most of the other young men might be regarded 
as friendly, insignificant creatures who served to fill 
out the picture. They were big in their own worlds 
but not in ours; we exercised a practised cordiality 
and maintained a considerable reserve. Marmaduke 
Abney, however, could not be ranked as insignifi- 


28 


MY DAUGHTER HELEN 


cant. He appeared as a friend of Antony and was 
presently adopted by Randal. Antony introduced him, 
as it seemed to me, with a mixture of pride and 
anxiety. No; these words are not quite right; let 
us say approval and deprecation. Perhaps these are 
not nearer to the shifting quantities of Antony's atti¬ 
tude which were partly, no doubt, the production of 
my own brain. Antony brought his friend in to 
tea, which we took in the garden under the shade 
of our sycamore. He struck me at first as rather a 
neat little fellow, but you certainly couldn’t accuse 
him of being dapper. There was something unex¬ 
pected about him, and you felt, with some discon¬ 
certment, that he only accepted you provisionally; he 
had passages of something like affability. We didn’t 
know who he was, and only realized slowly that he 
had some claim to come of a line of personages. 

I dramatize relations too hastily, and so it seemed 
to me that Antony didn’t trust him. Why? Was he 
afraid that Abney would make too much impression 
on Helen? Randal got on very well with him, but 
you can’t put on airs with Randal; he is calm, with 
an impregnable friendliness. The boys compared 
notes about their schools, and it appeared that Abney 
was slightly contemptuous about athletics. He hadn’t 
the schoolboy stupidity which some people find so 
charming, and Helen was checked and a little mysti¬ 
fied. I don’t quite understand why, but I think she 
got a little nervous, and she used and then repeated 
the word “ ripping.” 

“ What funny words you use! ” Abney said. 


MY DAUGHTER HELEN 


29 


In its small way it was insolent. Helen did not 
flush, but, in a way she had, her face seemed to con¬ 
centrate; the vagueness went out of it. She said: 
“ Which words ? ” 

“ Well, * ripping/ for instance. I thought it was 
archaic.” 

“ I’m afraid I do use it stupidly,” she said. 
“ Thank you.” 

It was such a good imitation of humility that 
Abney was discountenanced. Randal came to his help 
with something about girls’ schools adopting boys’ 
cast-off fashions, but Abney was puzzled. Helen be¬ 
came very sweet and suave with him, and presently 
he began to see through it, though Helen managed to 
produce a cunning mixture with some friendliness in 
it. He kept glancing at her, and I could see that he 
admired her. But I wasn’t going to be obsessed by 
my recurrent nightmare. I wouldn’t spoil the oc¬ 
casion by insane jealousy when we might all talk to¬ 
gether casually and happily in the sunshine. Helen 
couldn’t long remain aloof, and presently she regained 
her normal, happy manner. The young people talked 
of trifles eagerly, and my attention wandered. Then 
I heard Abney’s snigger—it wasn’t a sneer—but I 
didn’t know then that I was destined to become 
familiar with it. He was talking ironically, sarcasti¬ 
cally, of “ uplift,” and Randal broke in with some¬ 
thing about testing morals by competitive examination. 

“ But aren’t we to be good ? ” said Helen. 

She was simple, open-eyed, and Abney, I conceived, 
was hovering on “ How charmingly naive you are! ” 


30 


MY DAUGHTER HELEN 


or something of the kind, and only deterred by the 
fear that he might be caught out again. However, 
he muttered something about a primitive vocabulary, 
and it was Randal who said to Helen: “ You see, 
* good ’ and ‘ bad ’ are such impossibly difficult terms.” 

“ Not when it comes to eggs or oysters,” said 
Antony. Helen and I backed him up with reassuring 
laughter. 

“ Don’t you know the difference between good and 
bad ? ” said Helen to Abney. 

“ Of course there are good pictures and bad books,” 
he said. 

“ But aren’t there any criminals ? ” Helen asked. 

“ Crime,” said Abney, “ is an offence against the 
law. Perhaps you’re thinking of a curious abstrac¬ 
tion called sin.” 

“ Well, of course, I know there are sinners,” said 
Helen. 

And he was bothered again. He didn’t know, as 
Randal said afterwards, whether she was pulling his 
leg. He began to talk about criminals rather ner¬ 
vously. Crime involved mystery, danger, all manner 
of fascinating things. Let us be grateful to the crimi¬ 
nal for making an interesting world. Some of them 
are bold thinkers; anyhow, they break across the 
conventions. It was schoolboy stuff, and I didn’t take 
it seriously. He was making a hearty tea; he tucked 
into the cakes rather endearingly. A lad may talk 
about absinthe, but when he consumes cakes with con¬ 
viction there can’t be much wrong with him. 

Poor Antony became an apologetic figure. He was 


MY DAUGHTER HELEN 


3 i 


afraid that Abney was going rather far. I found 
myself looking at the pair of them through Helen’s 
eyes. Abney was displaying himself and not judi¬ 
ciously, yet Antony seemed heavy beside him. And I 
asked myself: Can these cynical young moderns act 
nobly? Are they capable of a great devotion? Per¬ 
haps, if I had spoken so, Abney would have called me 
primitive or early Victorian. I’m a modern myself in 
some ways, and proud of it. I looked at Randal for 
reassurance. 

Presently Abney and Antony went away, and the 
three of us sat with the debris of the tea-table before 
us. I turned to Helen and said: “ What do you think 
of the young man ? ” 

She screwed up her eyes and said: “ He wants 
watching.” 

“ What d’you mean by that ? ” said Randal. 

She was at her ease with us now; she had relaxed. 
She didn’t mean much, it appeared. She said: “ You 
know where you have Antony.” She poured herself 
out a cup of cold, stewed tea and had a good slice 
of cake. 

Randal watched her with amusement. “ Do you 
remember the days,” he said, “ when, about half an 
hour after dinner, she used to go to the larder and 
look for a piece of cold pudding?” 

Of course this Marmaduke Abney was negligible. 
It was Antony who wanted watching. It was ridicu¬ 
lous to put it so. I liked all these young people. 
There is a lot of talk nowadays about subconscious¬ 
ness, but I’ve always known various strata of con- 


32 


MY DAUGHTER HELEN 


sciousness, and one of them has commonly been a 
condition of fanciful apprehension. 

Helen said suddenly: “ He’s very attractive,” and 
I was startled, but on reflection I thought that there 
was no danger in an attraction so frankly avowed. 
“ What’s the attraction ? ” I said, and Helen had noth¬ 
ing better to offer than “ Oh, I don’t know.” 

Randal said: “ D’you mean the Unknown ? ” 

Quite seriously Helen said: “ Poor boy! ” We 
waited for some explanation, but it didn’t come. 
Randal asked her if she thought him handsome, and 
she said he was peculiar. Then we had some chaff 
about Randal’s tendency to a Roman nose. They 
sparred delightfully, affectionately. When Randal 
asked her if she thought the old man handsome, I 
said it was time for me to go away. But I watched 
them secretly from the window for the joy of seeing 
them together. 


Chapter 5 


TT7e soon got to know Marmaduke Abney better.. 

▼V Beside “the big three,” as he called them, he 
seemed diminutive. Antony towered over him, and 
was reproached for turning out spectacular. He was 
not a great hand at games, but he wasn’t hopelessly 
out of them, and when he was in form he could more 
than hold his own in the preliminary palaver and the 
subsequent explanations. Perhaps it was hardly fair 
to associate him with decadence, but he had been 
brought up in that dark old house at Lower Heaton, 
a village of the plain, which seemed the home of de¬ 
caying gentlefolk. The Abneys were dying out, it 
was said, and besides the old aunt with whom he 
lived, Marmaduke’s relatives were dim and sketchy. 
He said that they didn’t count, and adopted a bur¬ 
lesque pose as the last of his race. 

He was a boy who had done a good deal of quiet 
shrinking, I think, and now he sometimes adopted a 
bravura attitude. One mustn’t classify the schoolboy 
hastily, but he was the kind to develop into a wit and 
an intellectual. He would shrink from emotion, 
secretly fearing and desiring it. He was healthy 
enough and had a wiry strain in him. The noble 
Antony seemed blunt beside him, and Marmaduke 
would contemplate the great fellow ironically; the 
sting was taken from this by an engaging manner, a 
33 


34 


MY DAUGHTER HELEN 


kind of frankness. He was capable of rallying 
Antony on his middle-class air of prosperity and at¬ 
tributing it to the lack of ancestors. Helen began by 
attempting to shield Marmaduke, but presently she 
was shielding Antony; Randal, aware of the comic 
implications, suggested that she should let us all shift 
for ourselves. He compared her to the Jack of both 
sides in boys’ cricket, who is sent in last and gets two 
innings, but never a good one. 

Marmaduke seemed physically inadequate beside the 
great-limbed Helen, whereas Antony was her match. 
It startled me to see them together, but I had to get 
used to it. I was haunted by the ridiculous phrase, 
“ nature’s match ”; I could believe that eugenics and 
the trend of the ages were on their side. It was too 
damnably obvious, and one walks into the traps of 
the obvious view. I experienced a curious see-saw 
of antipathies, and would use one boy at the expense 
of the other. I liked them both; the hearty exterior 
life went on, and I kept the subconscious or half- 
conscious in order. I suppose I am naturally melo¬ 
dramatic, and I pitted Antony, the genial blunderer, 
against the dark, guarded, sinister Marmaduke. We 
don’t know people; merely a bit of the outside; and 
we build upon that, or idealize it into an impregnable 
image that might just as well be something else. And 
I was conscious, even then, that it may be the gay 
fellow who wears the hair shirt. 

Marmaduke responded to our not too-marked ad¬ 
vances, and we saw a good deal of him. He was a 
little younger than Antony, had followed his family 


MY DAUGHTER HELEN 35 

tradition in going to Winchester, and then had been 
pitchforked into Manchester business. He said that 
the family finances had just held out over the Win¬ 
chester period, and that now there was nothing left 
but bits of parchment. When his aunt died there 
would be an upheaval comparable to that expected 
for Europe on the demise of the Emperor Francis 
Joseph. 

He hated business and was not well placed. He 
wasn’t communicative about it, but we feared that he 
had to endure what he interpreted as scorns and 
slights. His ability might be called static, his wit 
was spectacular more than forcible. Helen distin¬ 
guished him; she was, as we say, intrigued by him. 
It seemed to me sometimes that she had simple, un¬ 
erring methods of valuation and that she could even 
apply them to subjects of complexity. But sympathies 
cannot flow unerringly, and she turned this way and 
that. 

She turned this way and that, and Pm afraid that 
my secret inclination was against the favoured one. I 
rehearsed the formal generosities, but I wasn’t gen¬ 
erous at heart. And yet I was a friendly creature; I 
liked those boys; I was a good father, a kind father; 
that, of course. Sometimes it seemed to me that I 
was idealizing her to the point of creation. Ah! no¬ 
body could do for her what I did. 

I impose my own subtleties upon her, for she was 
subtle only as all human beings are. She was about 
as big as I, and in a woman that seems bigger. She 
had great shoes that I could wear, she would grasp 


MY DAUGHTER HELEN 


36 

your hand like a man. And what a carriage she had! 
What a stately movement! It would have been stiff 
if it had not been majestic. I was so proud that when 
I spoke to others about Helen I had to be careful. It 
might appear that I regarded her as on another plane 
from the rest. Publicly, logically, I didn’t, but in my 
heart I was arrogant, exclusive. Her failures hurt 
me, but she could fail with an air. I resented her little 
stupidities, I didn’t like to see her banging balls into 
the tennis net or out of court when I felt that it was 
waywardness, carelessness, some kind of mental defi¬ 
ciency. Our superficial life went on merrily, and the 
Sports Ground was a centre of it. Marmaduke became 
a familiar figure there, and it was amusing to find 
Randal, who felt some responsibility for him, justify¬ 
ing his superciliousness as “ the light touch.” Marma¬ 
duke came down to the house one day, obviously look¬ 
ing for Helen, and said that at the club he could see 
nothing but hordes of dreary women. It was naughty 
of him, as it was to say of Miss Coplow that “ she 
plays a good pounding game, but isn’t decorative.” 
He taught Helen to speak of the lower middle-class, 
to which, it seemed, all but a few choice spirits be¬ 
longed. 

One day at the Club we watched Marmaduke play¬ 
ing a single with Antony, and at first Marmaduke 
got ahead. He was a clever player, who did unex¬ 
pected things, and Antony was puzzled, but remained 
calm and steady. Randal said that it was a wit play¬ 
ing a wise man. Presently it appeared that the wit 
was strained and ineffectual. The tricks looked piti- 


MY DAUGHTER HELEN 37 

fully inept against Antony’s strength and vigilance. 
Marmaduke settled down into a steadier, hopeless 
game. He became gloomy, maintaining his form, but 
no more. Helen walked away, and I saw him look 
after her with an expression that was almost despair¬ 
ing. She was taken into another game, and Antony 
and Marmaduke became distracted and kept forget¬ 
ting the score because they were watching her. Other 
young men were about, but they counted less. I wasn’t 
much afraid of them. I found myself suggesting 
words of caution—“Choose well! Your choice is 
brief and yet endless ”—and the wisdom of delay. 
And I had been for romance, for the adventure, the 
risk; I had ridiculed the mature choice of a mate. 

Any daughter of any father was not enough for 
me; I wanted the relation to be unique, and, looking 
round me, I had a silly, secret pride because I saw 
nothing like it. And yet I was not without humour, 
and I know that you can’t spring surprises on the 
human family. I had this cursed habit of distinguish¬ 
ing, analysing, considering all aspects; even to be natu¬ 
ral was a matter of choice. One exaggerates; one 
cuts a figure. Helen admired me, and I couldn’t help 
playing up a little to that. One becomes pitiful to the 
children, but I resented her pity, though I knew I 
must come to it. I wanted to be first with her as a 
man is first with his sweetheart. I was still a man 
among women, but I had left behind me their world 
of loves and lusts. My love now was purged of sex. 
I was spiritual. Before these ardent youths I could 
feel myself the protector of a shrine. I set this down. 


38 


MY DAUGHTER HELEN 


illogical and inhuman as it is. Perhaps it is no more 
than the lees of egoism. And all the time I was just 
a good, careful father and, to those who threatened 
my peace, a good friend. 


Chapter 6 


I made a lot of qualities out of Helen. I con¬ 
ceived her as serene, equable, a tower of strength 
and, again, as sensitive and shrinking. I saw in her 
a superb courage, and yet I remembered how, as a 
child, she would lie to save herself. The contrast was 
with the scrupulous Randal, who didn’t seem to know 
about that alternative of lying. I don’t know that 
she ever became quite truthful, but she ceased to lie 
for her own advantage. I think she would sometimes 
lie helpfully. Her pity was in excess; she would react 
too readily to the miserable and oppressed. Yet the 
manifestation of this pity was sweet to me. I have 
said that I resented its application to myself, and yet 
there have been times when I have “ played ” for it. 
If I drooped or faltered she was quickly at my side. 
She watched me, and I wanted her to be conscious 
of me; I liked to be in her thoughts. I did appeal to 
her, but I wouldn’t encourage a morbid preoccupa¬ 
tion. I, too, stood for life and joy. We were senti¬ 
mental together sometimes, but I could take a high 
hand with her; I could rouse her admiration and bask 
in it. She made much of me; sometimes too much; 
she would see me sometimes as a tragic or at least as 
a pathetic figure. If you force for pathos you can 
find it anywhere, and here was I getting old and grey, 
my mate gone, physical disabilities asserting them- 
39 


40 


MY DAUGHTER HELEN 


selves. What material for a pitiful daughter! I think 
my high spirits sometimes provoked her wonder. 
They were not sham, and I think she came to under¬ 
stand that you must be loyal to joys as well as to 
sorrows. 

No; I wasn’t just a tame, middling father. By 
God! These boys had a tremendous rival in me. 
We’ve had our jokes about it. My humour is inter¬ 
mittent but unquenched. Of course I knew that the 
stars fought for them, that nature was on their side. 
I was ready to efface myself at the right moment; I 
wasn’t going to be a dog in the manger. 

Randal would sometimes watch Helen and me to¬ 
gether with an expression something between benevo¬ 
lent and sardonic. He said he liked the ceremonial 
and that my manners put him to shame. Is it ridicu¬ 
lous to open doors for your daughter? When Randal 
talked about symbols of tenderness one became self- 
conscious. Of course I was careful, and wouldn’t 
give material for jest to the bluff, hearty fellows who 
called to their Jills and Joans to fetch slippers or pipe. 
And Helen didn’t wait to be called. 

In her pity I had a rival—Marmaduke Abney. 
Family disasters came upon him. His aunt died, and 
their house was sold. There was next to no money 
left, and Marmaduke seemed to be quite without ef¬ 
fectual supporters. The feudal system had come to 
wreck; the solid earth was dissolving. So it seemed 
to us in Darley, where we were not without aristo¬ 
cratic connexions—such precious links as a cousin mar¬ 
ried to a baronet or some obscure relationship to a 


MY DAUGHTER HELEN 


4i 


ducal house. That Marmaduke should be in straits 
was “ a shame/’ and, indeed, he might fairly reproach 
society with having mismanaged him. He was miser¬ 
able in his work; he was an instrument too fine for it 
and ineffectual. We all tried to be kind to him, and 
I think Helen found him difficult to mother. Be¬ 
tween two young people the limits of mothering are 
not easily defined, and Marmaduke must encounter 
rebuffs if he misinterpreted Helen’s solicitude. They 
were comic to me at times, but it was serious comedy. 
I was afraid that Helen might go too far with him 
or that he—poor devil—might misapprehend deeply. 
He was cunning sometimes in his reading of her con¬ 
cessions, he wasn’t chivalrous. He managed wonder¬ 
fully to evade the dismal and lugubrious by burlesquing 
them. He was jocular with “ Sister Helen,” and 
threw tags of Rossetti at her. I was grateful to him 
for sending her to the poem, over which she pored 
for some days. Boldly but with the usual ironical 
discount, he said that all she wanted to become a per¬ 
fect woman was more adventures among master¬ 
pieces. She bit her thumb—she had some childish 
tricks—gravely considering that. 

Both evidence and inference convinced us that Mar¬ 
maduke was making a poor fist of business. He gave 
us humorous sketches of his Manchester life, but I 
think they were carefully chosen and edited. He was 
ashamed of his environment and dreaded the call of 
a friend. Antony Derwent had looked him up at the 
warehouse, and had been received with coldness and 
embarrassment. Poor Antony was hurt, for he had 


42 


MY DAUGHTER HELEN 


gone in kindness and comradeship. “ It’s pretty 
beastly/’ he said, “ but the point is that it might 
happen to any of us.” Marmaduke described him¬ 
self as immersed in the lower middle-class. I think 
it was some solace to him to accept the pose of the 
aristocrat enduring grimly. And yet, as Randal said, 
this was another case of the map, a mile to the mile. 
In other words: “ Here’s this fellow posing as himself 
in his habit as he lives.” We were to suppose a dif¬ 
ference in mental attitude, but perhaps that wasn’t 
much. Certainly he had some grit. He main¬ 
tained his form though his clothes were shabby; I’ve 
known Randal reject his smart suit when he knew 
Marmaduke was coming. 

Randal had rooted him out of his poor lodging in 
Manchester, and brought him for the week-end. At 
Sunday evening supper Randal put the thoughtless 
question, “ What’s the matter with your hand?” and 
instinctively Marmaduke whipped it under the table. 
Then he brought it out and defiantly held it up. It 
was his right hand, and there was a curious horny 
smoothness extending from the outside of the little 
finger to the beginning of the wrist. He told us that 
it was the result of tying up parcels on a counter. 
“ Hundreds, thousands, millions of ’em,” he said. 
“ It’s the mark of my trade, my brand. And I bring 
it out here. It cleaves to me.” He was bitter; it was 
lamentable. 

“ It’s no worse than inky fingers,” I said, and 
accused Helen of giving me a fountain pen that 
leaked. Her face was hard set; I knew the look from 


MY DAUGHTER HELEN 


43 


her childhood when she was resolute to keep back 
tears. Randal grasped the nettle; he made a fine di¬ 
version of it. “ You dashed aristocrats,” he said— 
“ you think the world’s to be run by men with mani¬ 
cured nails. You should be proud of the sign of 
honourable toil.” 

“ Honourable! ” said Marmaduke. He didn’t pur¬ 
sue the vein. 

Then he amused us by enumerating the qualities 
necessary to make a good salesman, which should be 
the first object of his ambition; it was incredible that 
he could ever fill the part. He told us about his efforts 
to get suitable lodgings, and the offer of an elderly 
warehouseman, Mr. Pring, to house him. Reluc¬ 
tantly but inevitably he accompanied Mr. Pring home 
and partook of high tea with the family, which was 
completed by Mrs. Pring and a daughter, upon whose 
attributes he preferred not to dwell. A bedroom was 
inspected, and then Mr. Pring proposed a game of 
“ all-fours.” Marmaduke couldn’t tell us whether this 
was an obsolete game or the latest novelty. He didn’t 
grasp the rules, for his nerve was shattered when he 
realized that the social advantages of living en famille 
were being displayed. It was not intended that he 
should have a sitting-room to himself. In mortal 
terror, fearing discourtesy, he invented the legend of 
a doctor, who had insisted that he must always have 
a bedroom with a south aspect. None of them knew 
which way the house pointed, but Mr. Pring believed 
that the bedroom was due south. “ And,” said Mar¬ 
maduke, “ I shook my head sadly. I said that the 


44 


MY DAUGHTER HELEN 


moment I entered the room I knew it was north-east. 
I made some hazy calculations about the position of 
the sun. Then they proposed another room, and I 
said, ‘Are you on gravel?’ That bothered them, 
and when Pring asked what it mattered when you were 
cellared throughout, I said that, though I didn’t care 
myself, a promise to a mother was sacred. I got 
going, and carried it off with a high hand. I saw 
freedom in front of me, and began to enjoy myself. 
They thought I wasn’t quite sane, and wanted me 
to go. I suggested another game of all-fours, as I 
wished to master the intricacies of the game; I in¬ 
quired the time of the latest train, and even ven¬ 
tured on ‘ Is the bedroom ready ? ’ Oh, I did it thor¬ 
oughly. They wanted to throw me out.” 

He gave us his opinions on Manchester business 
and they were naive and cynical. Perhaps he had got 
among a bad lot. There was no essential difference, 
he assured us, between a business man and a bandit; 
the one thought—or said—that honesty is the best 
policy, the other that robbing is. Compare this hon¬ 
esty with any sort of decent intercourse between 
human beings! “ Their idea of honesty is to keep out 
of jail. Tying up parcels for bandits! There’s a 
career! ” 

I tried to get him a little work on the Herald, hop¬ 
ing for some development. He didn’t get the hang 
of things. He was refined, whimsical, audacious— 
the kind of contributor that you don’t like to rule out 
finally, but boggle over every time. It fizzled out. It 
seemed impossible to hold him up. His wages were 


MY DAUGHTER HELEN 


45 


a pittance. He grew shabbier, and old well-cut gar¬ 
ments were succeeded by the ready-made. He began 
to look furtive, or so it seemed to me. Antony came 
to me one day, and begged me to use my influence 
with him. He was gambling, it appeared. Merely 
small Stock Exchange transactions with outside 
brokers. And he lost, of course he lost. I sent him 
an invitation through Helen to come out to see us, and 
he declined it. Helen went and fetched him. She 
called for him at his lodgings, and made him come. 
It was unconventional but magnificent. She brought 
him out, so to say, by the ear, sniggering. It wasn’t 
heroic, and yet Helen seemed to find something heroic 
in his attitude. He jested insatiably. Of course I 
talked to him like a father. Why be a common gull? 
Why make things worse? Didn’t he know that the 
dice were weighted against him? That kind of thing. 
But Marmaduke assured me that he knew what he 
was doing. The dice were weighted, but only a little. 
If you speculate they always are, but there’s a chance 
to win. Say that instead of evens it’s four to three 
against you. Why speculate at all ? “ How otherwise 
am I to get out of this hole? To remain as I am is 
to lose. My dear sir,” he said, “ you look at it from 
the point of view of one who is somewhere. I’m no¬ 
where.” There was a sort of logic about him that 
was very depressing. 

He always had an eye on Helen. He was an actor 
of extraordinary skill and of a kind of sincerity. He 
was always putting his case, or part of it, in some 
subtle way. Your case may be very much yourself. 


46 


MY DAUGHTER HELEN 


He was certainly interesting, as these egoists often 
are. The reticent Antony was a block beside him; at 
the best a noble effigy. So I felt sometimes though I 
liked and trusted Antony. He lost ground with Helen, 
who re-acted to him spasmodically. Poor Helen! I 
was beginning to regard her as incalculable, wayward, 
incapable of guiding herself. Her calm, assured as¬ 
pect was, pathetically, a cloak. 

The change was that she had become marriageable, 
which means that she had become a subject for fatal 
mistakes. In “ provincial ” society we can’t get it out 
of our heads that mating is for life unless disaster 
intervenes. Brilliant young people in exalted circles 
show us how easy it is to correct mistakes. They flit 
about, they are fickle, unkind; they are incapable of 
a deep failure; years of comradeship and affection, the 
common life, are little to them; their shallow roots are 
easily torn up. It was impossible that Helen should 
look into the eyes of a lover and think: When I am 
tired of him I can give him up. We are illogical? We 
tie a mill-stone about the fresh, natural impulse of 
youth ? But we aim high. We aim at the best of all. 
It is good fun to be a philanderer, but it isn’t good 
enough. 

Helen was of the staunch kind, and she was im¬ 
pulsive, generous. She was no fool, but her wisdom 
was not of the canny order. I hinted cautions to her, 
I talked enigmas, and it might as well have been plain 
speech. Of course Marmaduke wasn’t eligible; there 
was obvious comfort in that. Implicitly she appealed 
to me to trust her, but this committed her to nothing. 


MY DAUGHTER HELEN 


47 


She would have me trust her deeply; I wanted some 
limited and explicit assurance. We were not estranged, 
but reserves crept in. I couldn’t be all in all to her. 
I would have renounced those old, vain dreams. They 
were part of the past, futile, ridiculous. I suppose I 
shall go on playing with them for ever. She must 
save her own soul. I could only stand and admire. 
And I could see her as noble and pitiful, above mis¬ 
chance. 


Chapter 7 


M armaduke managed to get his affairs into a 
shocking mess. He borrowed where he could, 
which was where he shouldn’t, he was alternately 
penurious and reckless, he had his shrewd subterfuges 
and monstrous fatuities. He had shreds of a fantastic 
honour and little moral sense. It is degrading to be¬ 
lieve that the people about you are bandits even if 
you see something of an ideal society beyond them. 
Marmaduke was losing ground, and he hadn’t much 
ground to lose. He didn’t give satisfaction to the em¬ 
ployers whom he regarded with contempt. He gave 
us the benefit of the huge joke that they considered he 
was not conscientious. Conscientious! And they 
were bandits. If you asked him what, precisely, he 
meant by that, he was a little vague in relating moral 
maxims to trade customs. Certainly some of the 
customs seemed queer. Conscientious! I suggested 
that they meant conscientious towards themselves. 
“Just so,” he said; “my country, right or wrong. 
But it isn’t much of a country.” 

At my invitation he came to the office to talk over 
his position. I didn’t know what to do, but I felt 
that something should be attempted. It wasn’t easy 
to do anything with him. He was too intelligent; he 
could counter everything I said. I’m not pompous 
48 


MY DAUGHTER HELEN 49 

and I couldn’t treat an intellectual equal as a boy. I 
was conscious of the curious, dim light thrown on 
our interview by his irony. It wasn’t quite fair or 
decent of him, for I was going out of my way in 
trying to help. I suppose he was anxious, nervous, 
on the defensive; he was perfectly polite, hardly re¬ 
sentful, but he annoyed me a little with his habit of 
evasion, his air of putting aside and disposing of that 
when I brought up a point. He was dignified and I 
couldn’t penetrate to much. I couldn’t make him pa¬ 
thetic, and yet he was pathetic. More than that—I 
could conceive him as desperate. 

And I had him at an unfair advantage; I was 
Helen’s father. My sixth sense told me that this mat¬ 
tered enormously to him. Poor lad! Poor fellow! 
To love Helen and to see her unattainable! What 
could be done with him? He was produced by obso¬ 
lete systems, traditions; carefully unprepared for the 
world. Such shifty supports as he had had given 
way, and his money-earning capacity seemed almost 
negligible. And yet he wasn’t negligible. He had a 
kind of critical, disembodied value. At times I felt 
my mind to be slow and dull beside him. He had to 
me what I may frankly call an aristocratic charm, and 
my heart sank when I thought of Helen. His taste 
was too fine to be condescending to me, but he was 
wrapped up in class consciousness and, at the same 
time, logical, sceptical. He didn’t answer to my con¬ 
ception of a lover, but I could see that he was, as they 
say, intriguing. He wasn’t frank. He gave me half¬ 
confidences. It was a singular case of abandonment, 


50 


MY DAUGHTER HELEN 


for a man of his class doesn’t commonly lose parents, 
friends, money, all solid supports in the course of a 
few years. I think his pride narrowed the circle of 
possibilities, and any conceivable helper was “ poor 
as a rat.” He had prepared a schedule of his debts, 
and doubtless had meant to consult me about it. He 
flourished it airily, he waved it aside, I mustn’t be 
bothered with it. I grew rather impatient. I let him 
go, though I hadn’t done with him. 

And then he came back and knocked at the door. 
He entered hesitatingly and said, “ Ought I to knock? 
Flunky manners? I never know what’s right with 
these bourgeois.” I looked at him inquiringly and he 
went very pink. “ Good God, sir!” he said. “ You 
don’t think I meant-? ” 

“ No,” I said, “ but it isn’t a correct attitude to 
anybody.” 

He stood there hesitating. “ You’ll wonder why 
I’ve come back,” he said. 

“ Sit down, my dear fellow; I’m glad to see you 
back.” 

“ Yes, but you’re trying to help me and I ought to 
be frank,” he said. “ I owe you something of frank¬ 
ness—frankness, you know.” The word had become 
an obsession. He was nervous—I liked him better so. 
He tried again: “ Mr. Daunt, perhaps you know—you 
ought to know—I wish to be frank—Oh, what a fool 
I am! The fact is—I should tell you—I’m in love 
with Helen—in love, you know.” 

There was sincerity in his shocking diction. He 
looked at me inquiringly, defiantly, and I didn’t speak 



MY DAUGHTER HELEN 


5i 


at once. I didn’t like meeting him with the discourag¬ 
ing platitudes that were inevitable. 

“ It’s absurd, of course,” he went on. “ I’ll spare 
you the explanation of that. I see it. As a suitor— 
pour rire, you know. I thought it right to tell you.” 

I thought I saw his point, but I asked him: “ Why 
do you tell me this now ? ” 

“ Because you have it in your mind to help me if 
you can. I don’t suppose it’s possible, but if you did 
put me in the way of something better—earning a bit 
—well, it might be against your own interests.” 

“Why?” 

“ You wouldn’t want me to marry Helen, would 
you? Well then, your policy should be to crush me.” 

“ My dear boy! ” I murmured. 

“ From your point of view I’m no good.” 

“ And from your own ? ” I said. It was a cruel 
question, and it came as a mere repartee. What a 
child he was, after all! As he stood before me frown¬ 
ing and blinking, I felt an immense sympathy for him, 
I’ve rarely felt more for any human being. I felt 
like going over to his side. It would have been rue¬ 
fully, I suppose, but one responds to a revelation. In 
a practical world he might be impossible, but man to 
man or man to child he wasn’t negligible. He didn’t 
reply to my question, and I put another one: 

“Does she know?” 

“ No. Yes. How can she help knowing? ” 

I resisted an absurd inclination to tell him that he 
wasn’t big enough. I thought: She pities him. I 
imagined myself saying so, but I wasn’t as cruel as 


52 


MY DAUGHTER HELEN 


that. It was time for common sense, for conventional 
fatherhood. So I said obvious things about youth¬ 
ful fancies and not being in a hurry and being able 
to support a wife. Perhaps his castles in Spain came 
crashing down. And then the young fool, apropos 
of nothing in particular, said: 

“ I suppose you have the prosperous Derwent in 
mind ? ” 

It was so outrageous that I was sorry for him rather 
than indignant. It’s an awful thing to check youthful 
exuberance. Here was the boy all ready for joy and 
love and, like the patriarch in the Bible, I had to tell 
him to serve his seven years and then, perhaps, an¬ 
other seven. His position was not even as favour¬ 
able as that. Jacob was unfairly fobbed off with Leah, 
but he was a man of regular habits who always gave 
satisfaction, and he was sure to come out all right in 
the end. Marmaduke didn’t seem to have a chance 
anyway except—and I mustn’t hint it to him—as an 
object of pity. Helen was pitiful, but she couldn’t 
marry on pity. I couldn’t bear to think of her glories 
coming to that. 

Such things were in my mind as I stared at Marma¬ 
duke without replying to him. He lost all his defiance. 
“ That was a horrible thing to say,” he muttered. 
Then he went on: “You see me a shabby sort of 
failure. You haven’t seen the struggle. I’ve endured 
a good deal. I don’t know why I should say this to 
you. I wanted to say it to some one. I’ve a kind of 
pose with Helen, I think, and it wouldn’t fit with that. 
Randal’s a good chap, but I must pretend to be stoical 


MY DAUGHTER HELEN 


53 

with him. I think I am rather stoical. I don’t know 
why I say all this.” 

I got up and clapped him on the back. “ You’ve 
kept your form wonderfully, my boy; I admire it,” 
I said. It was an inspiration of the moment, and I 
felt it thrillingly. I turned away when I saw tears 
starting to his eyes. 

“ Don’t despair,” I said. 

“You mean-?” 

What did I mean? I don’t think I meant much. 
One says reassuring things: It’ll soon be over, or 
You’ll find it some day or You’ll get there sooner 
than you expect. And then one day, unfairly, it is 
taken that you meant something. I was resolutely 
vague with Marmaduke. And what could he expect? 
It wasn’t likely that he would be recognized as a suitor. 

I managed to get an introduction to the principals 
of his firm, and they granted me an interview. It 
was unusual and they were puzzled, wondering what 
I was up to. One was of young middle-age and the 
other elderly. In manner both were guarded and 
peremptory. It struck me that they divided the world 
into two classes—those from whom they bought and 
those to whom they sold. The customer is sacred, 
and I wasn’t a customer. We began with a slight mis¬ 
understanding, which, however, was of their own cre¬ 
ation. They affected to believe that I had some 
thought of “ introducing capital ” and so fortifying 
Abney’s position in the firm. When I disclaimed any 
such intention they stared at one another and then 
at me. I explained that I merely wanted to know 



54 


MY DAUGHTER HELEN 


how the boy stood, what were his prospects, chances. 
He hadn’t any parents or guardians, and one felt the 
responsibility of a friend. The more portly of the 
two gentlemen, glancing at my card, said: “ But—er 
—Mr. Daunt, what business is it of yours ? ” The 
other laughed harshly with, “ Yes, where do you come 
in?” I said I was afraid I didn’t come in to much 
purpose; I simply wanted to help the lad and so had 
ventured- 

The elderly and more portly one interrupted me, 
holding up his hand like a policeman regulating the 
traffic. “ Mr.—er—Daunt,” he said, “ we had better 
tell you at once that Abney does not shape to be of 
much use to us. He has no push, he lacks the first 
requirement of a salesman. We have given him 
chances but he doesn’t take them. Now, you know, 
or you should know, that a good salesman takes no 
denial. He declines to be shaken off, he returns to 
the attack, he wears down the buyer’s opposition. Of 
course, he must use some discretion. But Abney can¬ 
not be induced to employ what one may call legitimate 
forcing methods. Certainly he’s a gentlemanly fel¬ 
low, well-connected and so on. We’ve been anxious 
to do what we can for him. But really-” 

It was my turn to interrupt. “ Is there nothing 
but salesmanship in your business ? ” I said. “ Here 
is a man with an uncommonly acute mind. Is he of 
no use to you unless he can bully people into buying? ” 

“ Do you suggest that he should manage our busi¬ 
ness for us ? ” the younger man asked. 

I murmured “ Not at all,” while he of larger mould 




MY DAUGHTER HELEN 


55 


—Mr. Hucklow was his name—assured me that a 
young man was not going to get on in the home trade 
if he couldn’t sell goods. “ And I may say, Mr. 
Gaunt—er—Daunt, that salesmanship is one of the 
highest and most important functions in commerce. ,, 

I bowed assent. I was the humble amateur bene¬ 
fiting by their experience. I mustn’t say anything to 
damage Marmaduke, and contented myself with a fur¬ 
ther eulogy of his mental equipment. They listened 
to me indulgently, rather incredulously. Mr. Hucklow 
said: “ You are a sort of literary man, I believe.” 

“ Sort of—Yes,” I said, relishing what was one 
of Helen’s favourite constructions. 

“ And you think you can teach us our business ? ” 

“ Far from it,” I said. I rose, thanked them, flat¬ 
tered them a little, tried to shape the end of the inter¬ 
view. 

Mr. Hucklow said he thought Marmaduke might do 
better in shipping than in the home trade. “ Less con¬ 
tact with customers,” he said. 

I was inspired to say: “Ah! If only you had a 
shipping department.” They glanced at one another 
with an expression which said: This man’s no fool, 
after all. I believe they had thought of such a de¬ 
velopment. It was irrelevant to the present issue. 
We parted with politeness, and the younger man gave 
a sudden human turn to things by asking what my 
golf handicap was now. I was a little startled. I 
told him I thought it was six, and he nodded: “ I 
thought they’d bring you down for that last return 
of yours,” he said. I was astonished. It appeared 


MY DAUGHTER HELEN 


56 

that he made an exhaustive study of the golf reports 
in the newspaper. He knew the handicap of every 
prominent golfer, and I was flattered to be ranked in 
their company. What a hobby! What a culture! 

These men had no interest in Marmaduke beyond 
the question of his utility. I certainly wouldn’t say 
that they were rogues, and perhaps bandits is a strong 
term. It seemed to me that they would be honest 
if they were quite sure it was the best policy. 

I told Helen something about it, but we skirted 
things. I didn’t mention Marmaduke’s appearance 
as a suitor, and she said nothing about him as a lover. 
I was coming round to the idea of Antony as in¬ 
evitable, and Marmaduke was but a friend in distress. 
A kind of punctilio induced me to suggest to Helen 
that she wasn’t bound to me, that she must have a 
life of her own, a profession, vocation, trade; what¬ 
ever she pleased; she might even, some day, get mar¬ 
ried. She bent her brows on me and asked whether 
I wanted her to go. I said that parting was inexorable, 
that she had life before her, and so on. I wasn’t 
inspired, I ground it out conscientiously. Warming 
to the theme argumentatively, I pointed out that there 
would be positive advantages in leaving me alone. 
All my life I had had—among other and stronger 
inclinations—a hankering after living alone. I had 
never done it; I had never been a striving young man 
in lodgings; I had missed many experiences. I didn’t 
want now to hinder people who were positively alive. 
Before me was only an aftermath, a remainder to be 
lived out gallantly or at least decently; she mustn’t 


MY DAUGHTER HELEN 


57 

think she was going to mollycoddle me. I became 
jocular in my assumption of the role of venerated 
elder continuing to do his bit. I began to enjoy the 
attitude, and, indeed, it wasn’t far from an aspiration. 
She drew me up with: “You talk bosh, Daddy, but 
I don’t say that I shall never leave you.” 

She was no fool. I didn’t see the inside of her 
mind, but that was clear to me. She was no fool, 
and yet she was one who might act as a fool; that 
is to say, according to our current conceptions of folly. 
And, at my best, I rejoiced in this; I believed in her 
and not in my own shrinkings and precautions. I 
hadn’t her confidence, and I suppose I hadn’t the right 
to it. My attachment, my love, was romantic. I 
wanted a noble destiny for her, something vaguely 
towering. 

To the inflated mood these young men were in¬ 
adequate. My rivals! I hadn’t got rid of that idea, 
though it seemed sometimes but the ribald ghost of 
old imaginings. I turned my harmless irony on the 
triumphant Antony. He had the fatuous air of a 
conqueror conquering nothing in particular. He was 
normal; strong, handsome, skilful, a good fellow, no 
fool. I keep finding out that people are not fools, 
and it is disconcerting when you want to control them. 
Antony got on well in the world, and it spoke well 
for the world. He was well placed. He was eligible, 
infernally eligible. Blatant, flamboyant success might 
be destructive of charm, but Antony was a good and 
gentle giant. You wanted him to have a good time, 
and, strangely, you could be afraid that he wouldn’t. 


MY DAUGHTER HELEN 


58 

Meanly, foolishly, I had once spoken of him to Helen 
as our local Apollo. Her stupid silence punished me. 
And I thought of these noble young creatures in sor¬ 
row and decay. I recalled the poem of Lascelles Aber¬ 
crombie where the decrepit, shrunken figure reveals 
himself with “ I am Apollo.” I raised the ghosts of 
beautiful women who, in my time, had flitted across 
the stage. 

I wasn't so base as to acquiesce: It has happened 
to me; let it happen to you. And I was never an 
Antony. Perhaps many modern women would scorn 
his obvious virtues. Can they make water flow up¬ 
hill? Can they subdue their senses to the servitude 
of the mind? Mere gloriousness won’t appeal, I sup¬ 
pose, to a schooled or a twisted nature. At times 
Antony filled my eye and I followed him entranced. 
He had no need to pose, but if he did, it was mag¬ 
nificently. With such a broad, genial nature, the 
woman must be already half-way to love. And yet 
they follow inner promptings; even in love they would 
be exclusive and peculiar. 

So, from time to time, Helen and I pecked at the 
philosophy of life. We said generous things, right 
things to one another, but we were at a distance. 
We said that nothing could separate us really, that 
nothing should separate us; husband, children, if ever 
they did come, would make the bond between us 
stronger. In our moments of exaltation we believed 
this, but there was more of height than of depth in 
our communion. At the bottom of my heart there 
was a well of bitterness. With a child the mother must 


MY DAUGHTER HELEN 


59 


come first and the father stands aside; at the most, 
he is a friendly interloper. And then, it may be, 
his influence waxes; easily he may become his chil¬ 
dren’s hero. And then they discover that he has feet 
of clay; they are determined realists, and an appeal 
to sentiment and tradition will not do. He may save 
the situation by sympathy and humour, or he may 
be discarded, become a landmark, a relic. It seemed 
to me sometimes that Helen and I protested too much. 
We would exceed the limits of our nature and give 
a fine name to the excess. Such thoughts were dis¬ 
loyal to my love. 


Chapter 8 


he passionate lover does not demand to be un- 



-■* derstood; he may have deep preoccupations 
which he has no wish to share or he may assign limits 
to communion. I had sometimes put my books in 
Helen’s way. I had made tentative, pathetic efforts to 
interest her in them; I feared to oppress, to bore. 
Watching her turn the leaves I was sensitive to all 
movements; I detected droopings, languors; I won¬ 
dered where she was in the book. She expressed, 
she maintained, a decent appearance of interest, and 
she was too wise for an excessive exaggeration of it. 
She took up points, she responded to little personal 
matters, she would permit me to take for granted 
any kind or degree of approval I might choose. It 
was all deeply disappointing, but it could be accepted; 
at least it was better than a pretentious sympathy. 
She wasn’t so stupid, of course, as to look at me 
simply as a failure. The good Randal would have 
prevented that. He, dear fellow, paid me an exagger¬ 
ated respect. It was comic; it became a sort of 
crime for any man to have a success on the stage, and 
a novel with a large circulation was self-condemned. 

The friends of the hole-and-corner artist come to 
him and suggest that, for once, he should give up 
niggling and attempt something big. A broad canvas 


60 


MY DAUGHTER HELEN 61 

and dash on the paint! A group of heroic characters 
in stupendous adventure! Something hearty and viva¬ 
cious. Ive thought of trying; I’ve turned it over 
in my mind. And then there comes again the elusive 
vision of something more remote and perhaps more 
attenuated, and I must be true to myself and pursue 
my own search for beauty. The narrowing audience 
should be a warning, I suppose, but a great artist, a 
Henry James, may refine and refine till there’s no 
audience left, and he does all to the glory of God. 
He lives, at last, the conventual life, he fades from 
the world, he is true to himself. It is an ideal picture. 
The real Henry James is a fount of inspiration, a 
source of the world’s vitality. 

I had always Randal, and him too I watched out 
of the corner of my eye. My work drew hopelessly, 
depressingly, away from Helen, and at times I could 
have felt reproachful, but there was neither justice 
nor interest in that line. She might be incredulous, 
but she was loyal, and I must acquiesce in division; 
I invented for private use a title of ridicule: “ The 
man with two shrines.” I wanted her to be plain 
and honest and leave the tortuosities to me, but I 
didn’t want her to be stupid. She wasn’t exactly that. 
She was instinctive, not studious. She had sudden 
perceptions that seemed like inspiration; she did not 
falter in questions of taste. I suppose she was indo¬ 
lent, but she could work like a horse. 

On occasion Helen could play up and she was not 
behind Randal in interest—certainly not in excitement 
—when one of my plays was produced in Manchester. 


62 


MY DAUGHTER HELEN 


It was “ only ” by an amateur society and represented, 
I suppose, something of a narrow and belated enthusi¬ 
asm. One likes approval from one’s neighbours, but 
not to the point of “ kidding those who have lacked 
success are apt to suspect any sporadic or local enthu¬ 
siasm ; they fear that it may be because they are good 
fellows or that people are sorry for them. Yet the 
sensitive subject will respond to small provocations 
and the natural man likes to be the centre of some 
flame or glow of life. Randal and Helen insisted on 
making an occasion of “ The King of the Tambours,” 
and Randal was ready to explain to anyone his theory 
of the ironical qualifying of romance, while Helen 
thought it all just beautiful. I suffered, as usual, 
from some desire to explain myself, but to the sage 
Randal this was hardly necessary; he had the hang 
of things, if not unerringly, at least to the purpose. 
Helen wanted a fuss and I think, poor dear, that she 
thought the difference between Manchester amateurs 
and a genuine West End production could be made 
up by demonstrations of pride and affection. Her 
loyalty and anxious championing charmed me even 
when I felt compelled to make heavy-handed disclaim¬ 
ers, to labour the exposition of the minor talent. There 
is (I explained) the genius who will burst through 
any bonds and justify himself in any circumstances, 
and there is the man of talent who fits into a place 
in the great world, serves it and draws his reward in 
cash or consideration; and then there is, too, the man 
who, stupidly or arrogantly or whimsically, acts as 


MY DAUGHTER HELEN 


6 3 

though he were a genius though he isn’t strong enough 
to compel the public to take what he would give ’em. 
He may save his soul, but not much more. 

Platitudes that looked like modesty and perhaps 
were not very modest! Randal nodded judicious ap¬ 
proval, but with some qualification. I think he wanted 
to create an extra class for me—that of the men 
whose high talent (his moderation forbade the easy 
use of the word genius) must be conditioned by some¬ 
thing of austere withdrawal. Helen, however, had 
not much use for all this. She wanted her sympathies 
to be in full flood; she glowed and kindled. The more 
modest your genius, the more heroic figure he is, and 
Helen didn’t believe in doing things by halves. She 
had read the play and brought it into her conversation, 
missing points sometimes and making shrewd ones 
that weren’t there. She radiated admiration and I 
basked in it. I liked it. Oh, I liked it! Randal and 
I laughed at her and ridiculed her, but we did it very 
nicely and hardly to the point of deflation. One isn’t 
sternly logical about a daughter’s love. But in the 
world we belonged to the world. I pretended that 
Helen and I were just father and daughter and ac¬ 
cepted for her the share of common eulogies, dis¬ 
paragements; I spoke of her with casual facetiousness. 
When I was in company my heart beat faster when 
she appeared and yet I was frequently critical. I 
realized sometimes that my idealizations were flimsy,. 
She didn’t always play up; she made it impossible 
to keep on a high level. We were dull and stupid 


MY DAUGHTER HELEN 


64 

together sometimes and, vexed and depressed, I felt the 
victim of illusion. 

“ The King of the Tambours ” was performed in 
a rather chilly hall before an audience that took it.a 
little too seriously. Though I have always intended 
my plays to have a human and general appeal, they 
have been thrust persistently into the recondite de¬ 
partment. On this occasion the environment suggested 
austere virtues, and I could have wished for a stuffy 
theatre box that would have been less bare and bleak 
than the front form. However, there was some core 
or essence to the entertainment, and I was more ex¬ 
cited, I think, than anyone else in the audience. You 
have mixed emotions when middling amateurs do your 
play, but to see it at all, to hear your words spoken, 
is an experience. I sat beside Helen and she held 
my hand. Her grasp tightened and relaxed. She 
was near me in spirit. I don’t know, thinking of 
it now, whether she responded to the play as I did, 
or whether her intense sympathy was directly with 
me. We were together and I was extraordinarily 
happy. Misreadings of the play or clumsy details 
didn’t matter much; I could do my own fashioning 
and idealizing. 

Antony and Marmaduke were with us, and they 
helped to make a kind of family claque. Marmaduke 
was cunningly appreciative, and Antony had a good 
“bass note of applause. It didn’t seem to me—I con¬ 
fess—that the audience was moved sufficiently or 
moved quite in the right way, but I couldn’t make 
up my mind whether they were too stupid or too 


MY DAUGHTER HELEN 


65 

sophisticated. The young people saw nothing wrong. 
It was a pretty good imitation of success, and that 
I should be unable to look on this as a stepping-stone 
to fame made me feel mature and disillusioned. But 
it wasn’t my policy to be a wet blanket or to spoil 
the fun by any ironical subtraction. Randal’s shy 
heartiness struck me as a little pathetic; he seemed to 
be ready to agree with Helen in taking garlands and 
laurel wreaths for granted. It was pathetic, but the 
pathos was a reaction from my side. For I was the 
centre of this rather futile, pathetic display. And 
all these young people playing up to me so anxiously 
and earnestly and kindly, taking the most favourable 
view, eagerly loyal, were beautiful and inspiring. Oh 
yes! One must have stern and austere criticism in 
this world. I can do a little in that way myself, and 
Randal can’t be deceived for long nor Marmaduke per¬ 
petually bridled. But this was another matter. I 
dare say they all thought the play very fine, but their 
criticism didn’t matter; their eager faces turned to 
mine told me of something deep and exquisite. 

The audience warmed to their work, and I was 
gratified to believe that I got through their veneer of 
formal criticism to emotions. Finally they made a 
good show of enthusiasm and I was hauled up to the 
platform to make my bow. The cries for “ Author ” 
were succeeded by those for “ Speech.” Randal told 
me afterwards that he overheard: “ We ought to get 
away from these tricks of the commercial theatre,” 
and I could have agreed when I found myself fatally 
entangled in cliches about the modern drama. I caught 


66 


MY DAUGHTER HELEN 


Helen's eager eye and didn't like to be spiritless and 
pedantic before her. I changed my note, and I think 
I said one or two spirited and incisive things; any¬ 
how, the applause was brave. 

We got away after bearing the brunt of private 
congratulations. Helen accepted them generously for 
me whenever I sought to evade them. It appeared 
that the drama had taken a turn for the better, and 
that we had that night lighted a candle that would not 
be put out. We walked to the station through quiet, 
echoing streets trailing clouds of glory. Helen had 
my arm, and on the other side Marmaduke was nerv¬ 
ously hilarious. And then it occurred to me that he 
would be left in Manchester while the rest of us went 
off in the Darley train. I didn’t want him with us, 
but I hated to leave him. There he was, left alone 
on the platform, and he waved his hand and walked 
briskly away just as though he had somewhere to go 
to. I felt sure that he hadn’t, and that he was un¬ 
utterably dreary at being left alone. I honoured him 
for that quick walk away. I looked at Helen, and 
she was staring after him strangely. She sat beside 
me, and the expression of her profile was obscure. 
I was uneasy, and I think we were all oppressed by 
the thought of Marmaduke. Randal tried to dismiss 
him with “ It's a shame to leave poor old Marmy 
behind,” but we fell silent. I tried to bring them 
back to my play, and Randal and Antony got in¬ 
volved in some superficial, futile argument. Shy ego¬ 
ist as I am, I tried again to bring them to something 
more interesting, but we didn’t get on. Helen seemed 


MY DAUGHTER HELEN 67 

to be brooding in tragic intensity, and I was convinced 
that she was overdoing something; she had no right 
to look like that. She watched Antony. Studying 
him? Appraising? Balancing? I pressed her hand, 
and she responded mechanically. 


Chapter 9 

T was a little surprised when Helen questioned me, 
with some circumstance, about money matters. She 
hadn’t hitherto been very good at listening to my ex¬ 
planations, and I told her again that her few hun¬ 
dreds of income, coming from her mother, would be 
in her own control when she was twenty-five or at 
her marriage, if that was by my consent. “ Then, 
supposing I married some one you didn’t like, you 
could keep us short ? ” she said, and we had some 
humorous exchanges on the point. I suggested that 
a few hundreds might be a nice help, but that they 
wouldn’t keep a family handsomely, and “ Just a living 
wage,” she said thoughtfully. “ Do you think me 
mercenary ? ” she continued, and I assured her that 
every properly constituted man and woman should 
have clear ideas about money and know his own posi¬ 
tion. “ In these days,” I continued, “ a spendthrift 
is a criminal and a miser worse,” and I gave a little 
lecture on social economics. She regarded me quizzi¬ 
cally, she wasn’t interested in the general topic. “ It’s 
only people that matter,” she said, which wasn’t quite 
logical after her questionings, and I said, rather acidly, 
that the reality of your care for people could be 
tested by your attitude to economics. “ That’s true, no 
doubt,” she said, and I was slightly disconcerted as 
when one pushes overmuch at the open door. We 
68 


MY DAUGHTER HELEN 


6g> 

seemed far from any point, and I studied her, puzzled 
and groping for sympathies. Then “What is it?” 
I cried. 

But it was nothing. Nothing at all. My apprehen¬ 
sions were of the vaguest, for when I faced possibili¬ 
ties I felt sure that Antony or Marmaduke had gone 
farther in my imaginings than in hers. And I wouldn’t 
let my apprehensions form. She left me, and I didn’t 
try to detain her. 

And in my heart I knew that I must lose her, that 
already, it might be, I didn’t stand first with her. 
Was it a mere vanity? I am only a father with the 
rest, and a time comes when we are thwarted and 
starved. We are capable of a passion and the time 
of mating is over. As Meredith said, “ His heart 
held cravings for the buried day.” Well, I wanted 
to know the worst. I wanted to know if the day 
was really buried. I set down here the things one 
doesn’t set down. They are, as the critics say, “ mor¬ 
bid,” a word that is as good for evading the issues 
as “ magnetism.” Logically all this is absurd. I am 
no fool. I front the world, as we all front the world, 
in an attitude charmingly correct. Some day I should 
“ give away ” Helen, and I should be properly garbed 
in a black coat and carrying a top-hat—unless indeed 
a genteel grey had become fashionable again. I should 
clap the bridegroom on the back and call him “ My 
dear boy,” I should laugh like a lunatic when rice 
and the old slipper were thrown. 

Helen and I couldn’t talk together of these things 
We were getting to an artificial state, and we feared 


70 


MY DAUGHTER HELEN 


to draw simple inferences. She was at an age when 
a girl can’t be open. If her mother had lived I might 
have been learning things about her, I might have 
got to know her better. She is a woman and can’t 
talk to me. She looks so beautifully frank and sim¬ 
ple, but it’s a placid mask. Life in its alarming 
strangeness, its intricacy, crowds upon her, and her 
joy of life is amazingly brave. I would help her, but 
I’m a stick, a stone, a mere figure. I suppose that 
presently I shall become a difficulty to her, an incalcu¬ 
lable circumstance. I do her wrong. Must you, to be 
honest in the record, put down every misgiving? The 
truth about a man is the best he can say for himself. 
A brave front is the thing. 

We had invited Marmaduke to join us in a sum¬ 
mer holiday, and as his fortnight was fixed for July 
we accepted that sweltering month. After hesitating 
between Eskdale and Patterdale, we managed to get 
lodgings in a little house in Hartsop. Those of civ¬ 
ilized habit who take to holiday lodgings ask them¬ 
selves why they and their kind continue to endure 
the squalor and inconvenience of such places. Most 
of them are totally unsuitable for the purposes to 
which they are put, but they give an air of improvisa¬ 
tion which is a precious part of the holiday spirit. 
And, incredibly, when you feel that you are suffering 
the unique experience, you discover that exquisite 
friends too, men of the world and fine ladies, are 
struggling with rice pudding and kippers and jam 
from the pot, with a minimum of towels and taps 
and knives, with the decorations of the lowly British 


MY DAUGHTER HELEN 


7i 


home. We took it all with a frolic welcome; when 
it was fine we went out, and when it was wet we 
achieved a kind of social unity in disputation. We 
even read a little, and literary composition went on 
sketchily in my bedroom. Of course we made excur¬ 
sions—to High Street and Helvellyn and Place Fell. 
The ascent by Striding Edge was the limit of ad¬ 
venture, and over this Randal shed his subdued irony. 
He affected to find Striding Edge early Victorian, 
and perhaps he was a little too ready to explain that 
real climbing was quite another matter. But Randal 
and I were the two genuine Wordsworthians; critical 
or sceptical comments came from Marmaduke and 
Helen. She was reading Dorothy Wordsworth’s 
diary, and it fascinated her. It was beautiful, she 
agreed, but it was incredible. She said to Randal: 
“ Is this early Victorian too ? 99 

He frowned. “ No,” he said. “ It belongs to the 
ages.” 

“ Do you mean,” she said, " that I might be to you 
as Dorothy to William ? ” 

“ Yes,” he said; “ or I to you.” 

“You make that concession to modern woman?” 
I said. 

“ There’ll never be another Boswell,” cried Mar¬ 
maduke. 

“ I should have thought they were all over the 
place,” Randal said with extreme gravity, but he didn’t 
respond to cries of “ Name! ” 

Helen agreed rather tamely that Dorothy minister¬ 
ing to her genius of a brother was a bigger thing 


72 


MY DAUGHTER HELEN 


than Dorothy in any conceivable independence. 
“ And/’ she said boldly, “ devotion to a brother ”—she 
looked at me and faltered—“ a brother—is—may be 
a finer thing than to a husband/’ 

I glanced at Marmaduke and he muttered nerv¬ 
ously, “ Oh! I say! ” I didn’t think he meant any¬ 
thing in particular by it. The wise Randal came in 
with a pronouncement on the changing spirit of the 
time. “ It’s true enough,” he said, “ that the modern 
brother couldn’t rest quite easy under a sister’s de¬ 
votion. He would keep saying to himself: Can she 
do better? It never would occur to Wordsworth that 
Dorothy could do better.” 

“ There was only needlework and dusting the 
drawing-room in those days,” Helen said. 

“ Exactly,” said Randal, “ but now-” 

“ There was always marriage,” I said. 

“ And there are lots of modern tyrants,” said 
Marmaduke; “ fellows who grind their women to serv¬ 
itude.” 

“ We’re talking about enlightened people,” said 
Randal, “ not Hottentots. I don’t say the young poets 
aren’t egoists, but they do things in a different way.” 

We got among vague generalities, skirting the par¬ 
ticular sometimes, but never coming to anything dan¬ 
gerous. Randal and I agreed quite nicely that the 
woman must throw over her parents on the deep in¬ 
stinct for a husband, and we wouldn’t permit Helen 
any sentimental reservation. I was a little afraid of 
Randal’s clever logic and apt to curry favour with 
him by anticipating his point of view. I thought that 



MY DAUGHTER HELEN 


73 

some day he might reproach me with being a senti¬ 
mentalist. 

I had been staggered when Helen proposed that 
Marmaduke should come with us, but it was obviously 
the decent thing to ask him, and I told myself that 
the proposal clearly showed he was not more than 
her friend. When he came he threw off care; he was 
charming, and we all liked him. Helen mended his 
clothes, Randal lent him things, for he was wretchedly 
equipped; but at Hartsop .it didn’t matter. He was 
superior to clothes; such outward things dwelt not 
in his desire, and he was admirably superior to first- 
class hotels as a genuine aristocrat should be. On the 
other hand, he seemed to require a valet, and we all 
tried to make up for one to him, wondering how he 
managed at home. He was the spoilt child of the 
party, and our pleasantries and chidings accorded 
queerly with instinctive deference to his intellectual 
standing. I could never get to the heart of him; I 
was curious to know whether he was good or bad, 
and he didn’t let it out. Perhaps he didn’t know, and 
his reticence was a kind of indecision. 

We got newspapers, and in them we followed the 
fortunes of Antony. He was playing in lawn tennis 
tournaments in the north and getting on rather well. 
Then we saw that, mysteriously, he had scratched in 
a third round, and Marmaduke said suspiciously: 
“ Does he know that you’re here? ” That was it, for 
Randal had given him friendly indications. He turned 
up at the Ullswater Hotel, and though Marmaduke’s 
grin of welcome may have had its rueful element, 


MY DAUGHTER HELEN 


74 

we were glad to see him. It made things less simple; 
it strung us up a bit. Capital fellow as Antony was, 
it seemed that he didn’t easily get the pitch. How¬ 
ever, he was ready to lead the laughter if not the 
talk, and he brought the diversion of lawn tennis gos¬ 
sip. He came only for a week-end, as he had other 
tennis engagements to fulfil. “ But why don’t you 
chuck ’em?” said Marmaduke incredulously, and I 
wondered whether this was extorted against his inter¬ 
ests. Antony explained that he had been able to get 
away from the last meeting because he was out of 
everything except the singles, but that now he had 
partners to consider. “ You wouldn’t come, you 
know,” he said, turning to Helen. “ Solid character, 
isn’t he?” said Marmaduke. “A bulwark of what 
d’ye call ’em.” There was, as Randal said, a certain 
grandeur about Antony. He liked his hotel to be 
first class, and even in Manchester he preferred to 
have his tea at the right place. Marmaduke told him 
he was bourgeois, but Randal defended him on the 
plea that there was a mighty rhythm of propriety 
in his life. But at the worst he took things smilingly, 
and he didn’t want to flourish alone. He was benig¬ 
nant to Helen; seeing them together again I felt pow¬ 
erless in the grasp of Nature. Marmaduke’s wit be¬ 
came unexpectedly bitter and shrill. 

We returned home sooner than we had intended, 
and the cause—to be distinguished from the reason— 
was, I believe—nay, I am sure—that Marmaduke had 
to go, and we couldn’t bear the idea of his facing 


MY DAUGHTER HELEN 


75 


Manchester alone. It doesn’t seem quite sane; it was 
sentimental, perhaps. It’s a world in which you 
mustn’t be too pitiful, and pity for the man 61 the 
world may be an infernal impertinence. The point 
is, I suppose, that Marmaduke wasn’t a man of the 
world, and so it was possible to have feelings for him 
as well as attitudes towards him. I didn’t want to 
go; Randal protested and consented; Helen hadn’t 
much to say. I was sensitive to her wishes, and 
we went. I had been looking forward to what Randal 
called concentrated family, and I did a little hinting 
on the lines of reason in ruthlessness. “ How can you 
be too pitiful?’’ cried Helen, and paused for a reply. 
So I went on savagely, grossly, implacably, to recall 
or to realize suffering, miseries, horrors, all over the 
world. They are never-ending, impossible to end. 
Children are being hurt, old people left desolate, strong 
men struck down. If it’s in the next room or the next 
street you bend your energies to relieve; if it’s round 
the corner you don’t bother. If you have a vote, of 
course you give it to the side likely to put things 
right; when a world’s catastrophe compels a subscrip¬ 
tion list you send your guinea or, maybe, two. Would 
you give away all but bare subsistence whenever there’s 
want in the world? Must we all devote our lives to 
work of relief? 

“ And why not ? ” said Helen. 

“ Ah! ” I said, “ we’ve to keep joy, gaiety, art, 
beauty in the world. Yes, and comfort, jollity, pro¬ 
fusion. It may be a sufficient life to devote yourself 


MY DAUGHTER HELEN 


76 

to these. The drones, the wretched and unfortunate, 
must die. It’s the finest things in the world that must 
be preserved.” 

“Yes; things like pity/’ she said. And then she 
added: “ You do talk some rubbish, Daddy.” 

Yet she was perturbed. She told me how nurses in 
hospitals threw off their preoccupations and were 
merry together. And the great, devoted women of 
history had not been unhappy. They had lived amid 
suffering, they were not callous, they could feel and 
bear much. As to mere jolliness, she didn’t know 
if that was much good. We might be meant for sor¬ 
row. 

“ And get to like it ? ” I said. 

“ To live in it. To be of it.” 

“To have sorrowful children?” 

“ I talk nonsense too,” she said. 

But I persisted that there must be some hardening 
of the heart. We must be sportsmanlike, we must rec¬ 
ognize the principle of the turn, the share; but we 
mustn’t go about seeking for the pitiable, trying to 
induce people to be pitiable. Indeed, I dreaded the time 
when my communion with her should sink to the 
minor key. I wanted her joyful admiration, her pride 
and confidence. I wasn’t in a decline, I had happy 
years to live; a very small infusion of pity was all I 
required, but she had so much to spare. I could be 
sarcastic about it, I could see it as comic. These 
modern young people are comedians. Frank young 
creatures with the lust of life in them will tell you 
that anything after forty is a living death, and you 


MY DAUGHTER HELEN 


77 


have been cherishing the notion that at sixty you are 
as young as your father was at forty. Life is not 
all change and loss. I would not have love to come 
to my brave, handsome girl in sorrow and pity. Our 
merriments together became spasmodic. I couldn’t 
trust her to be happy. Sometimes I withdrew from her 
in sullenness. It recalled the old days when she was 
a very little girl and was sulky with me. And then 
—God forgive me!—I was sulky with her and very 
unhappy. 


Chapter io 

R andal came to me in distress. The philosophi¬ 
cal Randal had tears in his voice and something 
like distraction in ’s aspect. He was a boy again, 
wanting his father, and it was bitter-sweet to me. 
He was the friend of both parties, of all parties, 
and he assured me that the outsider sees most of 
the game; his emotion positively let that platitude 
through. He told me what I had seen, inferred, 
dreaded. The poor boy was anxious about his sister. 
Helen and Antony, you might say, loved one another. 
They did. It was normal, obvious, the right thing, 
the way of the world. Nay, it was capital, joyful, 
beautiful (he gave me my own reflections). They 
matched, they were mates, they suggested a magnifi¬ 
cent symmetry. And then, athwart all this, comes 
Marmaduke. 

It was a queer position for me, for I was thrust 
into the part of Marmaduke’s advocate. I was im¬ 
pelled to say, “ Well, what’s wrong with Marmaduke ? ” 
knowing very well that a good deal was wrong with 
him. I think I had some dim, childish notion that 
Marmaduke and Antony might somehow cancel out 
and leave us happy and free. It was a feeling, a 
pseudo-aspiration. “ He’s your friend,” I went on. 

“ Yes,” said Randal, “ he’s my friend.” 

His emotion had told me much, but I saw him cool- 
78 


MY DAUGHTER HELEN 


79 


ing to articulation, to subtleties that might confuse 
the issue. “ In friendship one takes chances,” he said. 

“ And in love ? ” I said. 

I was on his side, I was with him in the way he 
was going, but I must oppose him. 

“ Confound the fellow! ” said Randal, recapturing 
his man-of-the-world air. “ I never thought he had 
a look in. I knew he amused her, and I resented it 
when she took him too lightly. Yes, Daddy, he’s my 
friend, and I’m not ashamed of that. But for Helen 
—I can’t be sure of him. He’s incalculable; he isn’t 
safe. Antony’s the man for her. It’s this infernal 
feminine contrariness.” 

“ And where are they, then? What’s the position? ” 
I said. 

It appeared that nothing was definite. So Randal 
continued with intelligent comments on the modern 
woman who is not all for the commanding figure, the 
conqueror, the tender bully; she wants to be in things 
at first-hand herself. I suggested that the conquering 
Antony deposed would become pathetic and might 
have a chance on the rebound. Randal wagged his 
wise young head, muttering about modern twists. In 
place of the joy of the hunting morning, we are all 
sympathy for the fox. We are getting too spiritual, 
he declared. He was talking from the head, hardly 
even from the mood. Coming down to common sense 
he said, “ Where’s he to get an income ? ” and he 
added that all the logic was on Antony’s side. “ Then 
let logic do its work,” I said. “ Don’t hurry things. 
Wait and see.” 


So 


MY DAUGHTER HELEN 


Shrewdly, sententiously, Randal said: “ When you 
reach a certain pressure of agitation something has 
got to be done; some decision must be made.” And, 
indeed, it’s true that too many young people let the 
moment pass and eat their hearts out in reserve and 
indecision. It’s easy to torture yourself till you cling 
to the torture habit. Perhaps such anticipations were 
not strictly relevant. I wanted to be alone; I couldn’t 
think freely with Randal there, and I had become 
guarded and artificial. He regained simplicity. He 
said: “ I can’t bear to think of her unhappy with that 
fellow.” It astonished me as the display of your own 
mind through another medium does. He was really 
very much affected. Here was I making an enormous 
fuss about my relations with Helen, unique and so 
beautiful, and now it appeared that Randal’s simple 
affection, his commiseration, his eagerness to help, put 
him at least on my level. He could throw over Mar- 
maduke in a moment, and yet he was staunch, he 
would never desert Marmaduke. 

And presently Helen came to me with an extraordi¬ 
nary proposal. It was, in effect, that I should adopt 
Marmaduke, that he should come to live with us. She 
said she wanted him for a brother; she met my eye 
calmly, unblushingly, as she made this remarkable 
statement. I was staggered, but I’ve the habit of try¬ 
ing not to dismiss surprising proposals too lightly; 
I’ve always thought the parental no-thoroughfares de¬ 
ficient in magnanimity. So I didn’t shout or wave 
my arms about, though I had an impulse of sympathy 
for the tyrannical Victorian fathers. Helen said that 


MY DAUGHTER HELEN 


81 


she had mentioned it to Randal, and that he was will¬ 
ing—at least, he was not unwilling. I asked what 
Randal had said, and it appeared that he considered 
it “ was not a solution,” but that anything was better 
than letting Marmaduke collapse. “ Solution of 
what?” I said. She had the impudence to say “Of 
the difficulty,” and I felt that it would be unworthy 
to continue with “ What difficulty? ” 

I declined any ceremony of adoption, but I said I 
was willing for Marmaduke to make a prolonged, even 
an indefinite, stay. I thought that this was best, though 
for me it wasn’t a happy best. Randal, who had gone 
back to Oxford, wrote a letter which my humour inter¬ 
preted as a congratulation upon my liberality. Evi¬ 
dently it cheered him to find the older generation capa¬ 
ble of innovation, or, at any rate, of accepting it. He 
wasn’t easy about the arrangement, but it was a res¬ 
olute grasping of the nettle and so appealed to him. 
He assured me that Marmaduke was “ extremely 
adaptable,” to which I replied by asking if he meant 
“ slippery rascal.” Of course, this was only verbal 
pleasantry; the prospect of Marmaduke was at least 
interesting. Continuing the policy of nettle-grasping, 
I told Helen to invite him. I don’t know what she 
said, but he declined. I was curious about his letter, 
but she didn’t show it, and I was left to surmise pride, 
reserve, arrogance, delicacy, common sense. I was 
anxious, for Helen had retired into her own fastnesses, 
her inscrutable mood, and I didn’t know what would 
happen next. She was gentle with me and kind and 
even playful, but I didn’t know her. She was mys- 


82 


MY DAUGHTER HELEN 


terious, and I assured myself that love is founded on 
mystery; you go a little way and the infinitely inscruta¬ 
ble lures you; know everything, even penetrate to the 
positive essential, and all is over. But I was Helen’s 
father and she was unhappy. I must do something, 
so I wrote to him. In reply I received a queer rigma¬ 
role. I suspected him of being drunk when he wrote 
it. He wasn’t a drunkard, I was sure, but I had seen 
him drink rather recklessly. 

I read the letter by inferences, and I think he didn’t 
want to be overloaded with pity, especially with Helen’s 
pity. I think, too, there was a small, furtive reason 
against his coming in the poor boy’s vanity. He didn’t 
seem to care about the shocking state of his wardrobe 
when we were at Hartsop, but it might be taken as part 
of the fun there; naturally he didn’t like to come to 
us as a mendicant. There was a burst of arrogance 
in the letter: “ You think me weak. Which of you 
has endured like me ? ” It was startling. 

I showed the letter to Helen and she was angry 
with me. “ You want to damage him with me,” she 
said. “ You are not generous.” 

I gazed at her and she corrected this miserably, 
ridiculously into: “ You are less generous than usual.” 

I didn’t know what to say, and I feared to make 
some smart, irritating point. Dejectedly she went on: 
“ Didn’t you want me to see how wrong he could be ? 
Didn’t you want to choke me off ? ” 

I said: “ I would tell you everything I knew about 
him, good or bad.” 


MY DAUGHTER HELEN 83 

She considered that and then she said: “ I haven’t 
been fair to you.” 

It was a cool, reasonable concession. Sympathy, 
emotion, welled up in me, and she would put me off 
with reasonable concessions. A kiss on the brow or 
some such frigidity would have been a suitable punctu¬ 
ation. She wasn’t fair to me. And I wrote again to 
Marmaduke, begging him to come. I sat long over 
the letter, weighing phrases and concocting expres¬ 
sions of sympathy and even of admiration. I was 
really very “ nice ” to him. He replied to say that 
he would think it over; the letter contained what are 
called suitable acknowledgments, but there was some 
gratitude in a postscript. I offered to show Helen the 
letter, but she shook her head. 

For the time we left it at that and went on with 
our lives, with our business and desires, “ such as they 
are,” as Hamlet says. I wanted to know where she 
stood; I was intensely curious. I should have liked a 
long and intimate conversation about Antony and Mar¬ 
maduke with beautiful, frank, girlish confessions, and 
I felt capable of a wonderful magnanimity. We were 
friendly and gentle together, and yet I couldn’t say 
a word about it. All our intimacy and affection 
seemed to be irrelevant. She was terribly sensitive, 
and if I cleared my throat she stiffened to the defen¬ 
sive. I imagine that her mind was in confusion, her 
feelings obscure, her egoism fiercely combatant. I 
couldn’t have got the truth out of her, for there was 
no coherent truth. I believe now that her nature was 


MY DAUGHTER HELEN 


84 

struggling to noble issues, that this wasn’t just a per¬ 
verse mood. But we fell apart; we retained our ten¬ 
der courtesies, hoping for something more. 

And, after all, Helen wasn’t everything to me. 
There was Randal, too, but my children were not all. 
I am a literary man; I am an artist; I have my re¬ 
sources. I found myself ranging resources against 
her. I have the queer old habit—and perhaps most of 
us have it—of Castles in the Air, Castles in Spain. 
When I can’t sleep at nights, I set off to incredible 
adventures. When I was a boy I made my hundreds 
in big cricket matches, I led forlorn hopes. And now 
I sometimes go on, from night to night, pursuing the 
same episode and not a very subtle one. I keep to 
the boyishness of it. I make Helen my heroine, and 
I indulge in debauches of sentiment. I die for her, 
I sacrifice for her; and though it has occurred to me 
that all this is very like David Copperfield and the 
elder Miss Larkins, I go on with it. Helen is the 
splendid figure, but there are times when it comes 
to me with a shock that she is just an ordinary girl, 
that she isn’t looking beautiful, that she isn’t doing 
anything that matters, that the world is a dull place. 
And then some movement, some word, a quickening 
within myself; she is graceful or significant or lucky, 
and my idealism soars up again. There is steady 
affection to reinforce it, of course. I am sceptical 
about their Beatrices and Lauras, mere emanations 
from the poets. I have my daughter, Helen. 

Yes, but I have my resources, and even day-dreams 
might take me far from her. I have impulses, habits, 


MY DAUGHTER HELEN 


85 

deep prepossessions that she can’t share, can’t com¬ 
prehend. We’ve gone to the theatre together, but her 
appreciations are wayward, accidental. They don’t 
chime with mine; she’s interesting sometimes, but un¬ 
ordered. I strive towards order with her, but it’s 
a mad quest. It’s like trying to get order into our 
queer, fascinating old world. Success, in either case, 
would be disastrous failure, but we have to work for 
it; our moral nature becomes a ruthless machine. But 
when things that move me don’t touch her, I feel 
that there’s something wrong, something that ought 
to be put right. 

I have my resources. I’ve no craving for the life 
of the actor, but I’ve the habit of acting in the mind. 
I pace the lawn on a sunny day, and the mighty 
rhythm of Othello’s speeches possesses me. Rarely 
do I articulate, and when I do it’s experimental, 
broken. But in the mind the passionate sonorities roll 
magnificently. 

“ Farewell the tranquil mind, farewell content,” 

it goes, and then I have Iago by the throat and hurl 
those tremendous speeches at him. But I pause— 

“ I slept the next night well, fed well, was free and merry ” 


for a great line will sometimes possess my mind so 
that I can’t get past it, but repeat it again and again. 
And “ free and merry,” I say, “ free and merry,” and 
ponder the phrase. It does not become less astonish¬ 
ing, and I can continue to invest it with shades of 


86 


MY DAUGHTER HELEN 


meaning and emotion. I can even trail about the 
stage crying “ Wash me in steep-down gulfs of liquid 
fire! ” I can repeat “ She’s like a liar, gone to burn¬ 
ing hell: ’twas I that killed her,” and the beauty of 
it is so poignant that it is hardly bearable. 

I can feel the frenzy of an exalted poetical diction. 
What a respite from the world! What a relief! 
Helen has filled me with emotion, and this expression 
of emotion relieves me. But she can’t share it; she 
can’t understand. I saw her lean from a window, 
and “ Whatever are you doing ? ” she says, for I had 
been waving my stick and my arms. I tell her in 
guarded form, and she says: “ Queer old Daddy.” I 
kiss my hand to her and it makes me happy. I am 
timid with her; I am shy. I am very shy sometimes, 
and I am afraid of boring her with my preferences 
or enthusiasms. She has wonderful capacities, and I 
don’t give her a chance. I tell myself that it’s useless 
to talk to her about Wordsworth. She can’t see any¬ 
thing but childishness in “ We are Seven.” Some 
lines of the great ode stirred her, but I dare say a 
commoner, grandiose thing would have done as well. 
When, once, I read “ The Leech Gatherer ” to her I 
compelled her attention, and “ You make me feel it,” 
she said. That was a triumph, but I couldn’t make 
steady progress with her. The “ Ode to Duty ” puz¬ 
zled her. 

She was preoccupied. Realities pressed upon her; 
adolescence, with its terrors and shy awakenings, was 
not far behind her, and now shapes grew more definite, 
apprehensions took form. Yes, I suppose I am mor- 


MY DAUGHTER HELEN 87 

bid; I make too much of it all. The casual, good- 
natured, ordinary parental relation is the best. I have 
a calm, steady affection for Randal, as I suppose he 
has for me. Helen’s for me is, I suppose, more like 
a fitful pulsation, but mine for her is an excess, it is 
fanatical; you can cultivate your passions, you can 
connive at their growth. And now this passion had 
become more one-sided than ever. She was passing 
away from me; she was under an influence that must 
be stronger than mine. Her mother had talked to her 
of marriage as a sacrament, and she couldn’t asso¬ 
ciate the idea of it with pure joy. Randal and I were 
ready to plump for Antony, but he was fading out 
of the picture. We were both agitated, we were even 
exasperated against the insidious Marmaduke. We 
were a little exasperated with Antony too. I didn’t 
know exactly what had occurred between him and 
Helen, but there seemed to be something fatuous in 
his sad acquiescence, his magnanimity. The gentle 
giant was ready to be the friend of every one, and we 
felt that he ought to have fought the case. It happened 
that I met him in the Manchester streets, when I was 
thinking of him in terms of Helen, and I stopped him. 
The traffic surged round us, and I questioned him. I 
think I said: “ Look here! What’s the meaning of all 
this ? ” He didn’t pretend not to understand. We 
were in Cross Street, and he took my arm and led me 
into the comparative quiet of King Street. He did it 
very kindly and very much as an elder brother would 
have done it. We paced slowly up that highly respect¬ 
able thoroughfare arm-in-arm. 


88 


MY DAUGHTER HELEN 


“ Now, what d’you want to know? ” he said. 

The blunt word has always been one of my affecta¬ 
tions. I said: “ I want to know why you are not to 
be my son-in-law.” 

“ There’s nothing I should like better.” 

“ Yet you submit ? ” 

“ Do you want me to make a row ? ” he said. “ Eve 
no grievance. Helen has been very kind to me. We’ve 
talked it over a good deal. I think she’s wrong, of 
course; I think she’d far better marry me. You never 
know—it isn’t that I’m not good enough, she says. 
Indeed, she goes on saying that Em too good. I’m 
too flourishing. It’s quite absurd. She seems to 
think that you can be too happy—that I—Eve thought 
of going out and smashing something. I thought she 
liked me—loved me, you know. Marmaduke Abney’s 
a cleverer chap, of course, but I don’t think it’s that. 
If I were a broken-down ruffian I might have a chance. 
I can’t pretend to be what Em not.” 

He was a moderate, likeable fellow. I couldn’t 
reproach him for keeping within his nature. I couldn’t 
even despise him for lacking passion, though I thought 
how tremendously I would have swept aside Helen’s 
flimsy subterfuges if I had been in his place and with 
his advantages. He would make a good faithful-dog 
kind of lover. Perhaps, after all, Marmaduke was 
more worthy of Helen. Neither of them would drink 
up eisel nor eat a crocodile, but I could imagine Mar¬ 
maduke doing something desperate. Antony would 
never be desperate. To the worst that fortune could 
do, to disaster, to impending destruction he would pre- 


MY DAUGHTER HELEN 


89 


sent a brave front. I found that I had a great affec¬ 
tion for him. We parted with friendliness, and I 
watched him swing down King Street like a man with¬ 
out a care. It would have been less touching to see 
him crawl away in dejection. His gallant aspect ex¬ 
pressed a kind of humility; who was he to complain? 
And “ Damn your humility,” I said, looking after 
him. 


Chapter n 

T was constrained to play my last card; I proposed 
delay. I found it difficult to get Helen to talk 
about it. She might have feared my rough touch. 
I don’t think she was ever a devout Christian, but she 
was sensitive in anything relating to her mother, and 
she had somehow persuaded herself that her mother 
would approve of her marriage. I might have been 
interfering with a religious rite, and I, on my part, 
ridiculously, found her lacking in intellectual honesty. 
And, of course, she was; she moved by intuitions, 
impulses; it was useless to look for logical justifica¬ 
tion. 

So I talked to Marmaduke, and not unkindly, I 
hope. “ I know you’re not mercenary, my boy,” I 
said, “but I don’t see what your financial scheme is. 
You can barely support yourself, and I don’t see how 
you can take on Helen.” 

He looked blank. “ She says she has some money,” 
he said. 

I explained that she hadn’t. “ She’s now nineteen,” 
I said, “ and she hasn’t any income till she’s twenty- 
five. It is true that I could let her have this income 
if I approved of her marriage, but then, you know, 
I don’t. At present, I don’t.” 

“ Yes, I know,” he said, “ but she’s quite sure that 
—well—I mean t’ say—she thinks you’ll come round.” 

90 


MY DAUGHTER HELEN 


9i 


“ I shall have to come round in about six years.” 

“ But, my dear sir,” he cried in dismay, “ we may 
all be under the sod.” 

I said: “ If I’m under the sod I shall be succeeded 
by trustees, who have no option at all. It’ll have to be 
six years.” 

“ No good in murdering you, then,” he said. 

We were both good-tempered over it, but we didn’t 
agree. The virtue of delay didn’t appeal to him at 
all. It was contrary to his philosophy. I suggested 
that he would naturally wish to prepare a place, to ob¬ 
tain a position, to strengthen his hold on the world be¬ 
fore embarking on matrimony. I’m afraid I used 
that phrase, and it gave him a kind of opening. “ Isn’t 
this rather conventional ? ” he said. I agreed, but 
maintained that conventions in moderation were neces¬ 
sary; we couldn’t go on initiating and improvising all 
the time; no nerves or constitution would stand it. 
Rather gloomily he said: “ Better take me as I am.” 

We did not go very deep, but we skirted the sub¬ 
ject of his possible future. He knew himself too well. 
He had none of the hopeful illusions of the industrious 
apprentice. He disliked the idea of the future, and 
that notion of serving seven years for Rachel filled 
him with dismay. My heart sank to think of this as 
my Helen’s husband. Where would he be in the course 
of the years ? We must all face the ultimate collapse, 
but most of us are upheld by intervening ambitions. 
Marmaduke hadn’t ambitions, and to him the future 
was an obscurity of disaster. So I made it out. He 
lived in the present. He wanted to marry Helen, and 


92 


MY DAUGHTER HELEN 


if she could get that income it would be immediately 
practicable. He was not really extravagant; he had 
fairly simple tastes, though he was capable of expan¬ 
sions. A little house with Helen in it must be infi¬ 
nitely attractive beside those frowsy lodgings. And: 
Here I am! he might say. I am at my best. I am not 
a bad fellow. I am a man of family. (He wouldn’t 
say that, but it was in his mind.) I am worth while 
to any girl that’s any good. And doubtless, in his way, 
which wouldn’t be the high Victorian way, he idealized 
his love for Helen as, doubtless, she idealized hers for 
him. And certainly he was, as we say in these days, 
amusing. He wasn’t negligible. I think Helen had 
the idea that I ought to applaud her choice of an intel¬ 
lectual (though, by the by, he wasn’t precisely that), 
and she might have been ready to congratulate me on 
missing poor, dull old Antony as a son-in-law. She 
could be roused to something near that, though An¬ 
tony, I’m sure, remained to her a benignant figure and, 
I think, even disconcertingly pitiable. 

Between intelligent people the straight talk hasn’t 
much virtue. They know all there is to say, and to 
project the words at one another may roughen up the 
nerves without touching the reason. Yet I felt that 
Helen and I must make some attempt at an under¬ 
standing, that in this case all wasn’t so simple. So I 
put the seemingly simple question to her: Why would 
she marry? 

We paced the lawn together, and it struck me that 
it would be more difficult to get her into a corner here 
than in a room. We did, indeed, interrupt ourselves 


MY DAUGHTER HELEN 


93 


sometimes to point out a plant or to remark that the 
south-west wind had cleared the air, and given us" the 
long ridge of Kinder Scout again. Such interrup¬ 
tions were friendly in intention, devised to take the 
edge off any gathering hostility. For I suppose there 
was hostility. Love doesn’t imply agreement, but dis¬ 
agreement can’t exist along with love. Why would 
she marry? Why did anyone marry? I meant, why 
should she marry Marmaduke? 

I did mean that. She asked what I had against 
him, and I said: “ Nothing, but what’s in your own 
mind.” This was rather neat, but there isn’t much 
good in being neat in such a case. She said, “ Then 
there’s nothing,” with an air of finality. Of course 
that wouldn’t do for me. Then she said: “ Surely, 
Daddy, this is my business, not yours.” 

I said: “ If it’s business we’re talking, the point is 
this: Marmaduke can’t support you. By your moth¬ 
er’s arrangement I’ve control of your money. The 
arrangement was made for such a case as this. I 
think he’s not a suitable husband. He has to show 
that he is capable of becoming one. It’s for him to 
make the effort. If he doesn’t or can’t, he’s unworthy, 
he’s despicable.” 

Impatiently she said: “ That sounds well, of course. 
If you take the ordinary worldly view, Marmaduke 
won’t do at all. But, don’t you see—there’s nobody 
like him. He’s—well, he’s Marmaduke.” 

That was it. She didn’t claim for him moral quali¬ 
ties or social or any kind except the supreme quality of 
being Marmaduke. And I couldn’t analyse their rela- 


94 


MY DAUGHTER HELEN 


tion; I could only surmise and infer and probe round 
dejectedly. Poor girl! She looked at me with in¬ 
credulous eyes. She found herself against something 
hard in me. I was the obstinate parent, after all. I 
kept thinking in her favour. If she was for Marma- 
duke, I didn’t want her to be slack in it. A big tragic 
figure is better than a little, uncomfortable one. Per¬ 
haps it was better to come to smash than to meander 
on in ignoble dullness, semi-comfort. And, besides, 
Marmaduke mustn’t be regarded as simply a bad hat. 
The Victorian parent in me estimated the youngster 
as selfish and irresponsible. My objection to Marma¬ 
duke would appeal to any rational parent; I was sup¬ 
ported by the wisdom of the ages, and yet I’ve always 
been disposed to a sceptical discounting of that wis¬ 
dom. 

We went on pacing the lawn, but she had dropped 
her hand from my arm. I wondered if she could con¬ 
ceive how miserable I was. I looked upon sky and 
trees and the distant hills, and it flitted through my 
mind that as solace the power of these was much ex¬ 
aggerated. She began to speak again. 

“ Of course,” she said, “ I might have an easier time 
by marrying some one else. I know you’ve thought of 
Antony, and—well, he would have been willing.” 

I laughed a little here. I must have my poor little 
jokes. She looked at the landscape severely. “ I beg 
your pardon,” I said. 

“ I like Antony very much,” she continued. “ There 
was a time when I could have believed that I loved him. 
But now—and you—you’ve always preached to me 


MY DAUGHTER HELEN 


95 

0 Preached/ I muttered) against the easy and the 
luxurious, the way of least resistance. Marmaduke 
may lead me a hard life? Very well. But you don’t 
know him. You don’t understand. He’s not your 
conventional, easy-going, competent young man of the 
world. You don’t mean to say you think more of An¬ 
tony than of Marmaduke?” And then she added, in 
a little comic interlude of commiseration, “ Poor An¬ 
tony ! ” 

“ I should prefer him for a son-in-law,” I said. I 
don’t know why I said it. She roused my antagonism. 
Great heaven! My antagonism! And I felt for An¬ 
tony. I was getting enmeshed in feelings. If Helen 
was determined to marry Marmaduke I couldn’t stop 
her, but reason was against it. Yes, and Randal was 
against it. I didn’t want to stress this, for it wasn’t 
fair to use him just to bolster my case; doubtless he 
had his own point of view. It was all a question of 
Marmaduke’s character, and if her mind was made up 
it would be a horrible thing, a disastrous start to 
blacken it to her. Besides, as I had said, I knew no 
more than she did. And I had to put it to myself 
whether deeply, subconsciously, my opposition was not 
very much that old jealousy. I thought I had schooled 
myself to yield gracefully, but even now I hated that 
anyone should take my girl from me. Yet if she 
yielded and remained unwillingly with me, I had lost 
her. I had lost her, anyway. 

It might have been telepathy that led to her cutting 
across my meditation with: “You can’t expect to keep 
me all the time.” Perhaps it was only shrewdness. 


96 


MY DAUGHTER HELEN 


And, doubtless, the cause of all the trouble was just 
the spring of the young blood. After all, these young 
people were lovers. The world has agreed that love 
bloweth where it listeth; the old sentimental world has 
always believed in love philtres. I thought I knew 
better, I thought that diagnosis was applicable even 
here; yet I had thought that Antony was inevitable. 
It was her queer whim to qualify the simple burgeon¬ 
ing of youth; she wanted something of her very own; 
she preferred the crabbed Marmaduke to the resplen¬ 
dent Antony. And perhaps her confused mind— 
which could prompt such clear, decisive action—con¬ 
ceived Marmaduke sometimes as a brand to be plucked 
from the burning. He was an attractive kind of sin¬ 
ner, and are we not told that a woman loves a rake? 
It was never precisely true, but women do not love 
plaster saints. Antony wasn’t that, but to Helen Mar¬ 
maduke was the more romantic; the more intriguing 
figure. Possibly she would regard it as a holy office 
to mother him, and though romance and mothering 
make a queer combination, Helen had always a turn 
for mixing things. Marmaduke had the greater need; 
I used to think that choice of Candida’s at the end of 
the play was fudge, but perhaps there’s something in 
it, or there would have been if it had been at the be¬ 
ginning instead of the end. I try to see Helen’s choice 
as possible, which it must have been as it was made. 
My bogglings were not all selfishness; I wanted high, 
straightforward ecstasy for her. 

Of course she was too shrewd to say she wanted to 
marry Marmaduke because she pitied him; she was 


MY DAUGHTER HELEN 


97 


capable of immolating herself, but she would do it un¬ 
obtrusively. I didn’t press my points; I had to lie on 
whatever bed I made for myself. 

So we came back to business again. She was very 
calm about it. There was no difficulty. In a matter 
of this kind it was impossible that we should disagree. 
She relied absolutely on my sense of justice. I couldn’t 
help interpolating: “And your mother’s.” 

“ Let’s not bring my mother in,” she said. “ I sup¬ 
pose she took somebody’s advice or did the usual 
thing, or wanted to pay you a compliment. I am as 
capable of choice as I ever shall be. I am going to 
marry, and I need the money. Why! It wouldn’t be 
honest to keep it from me.” 

“ Pardon me! ” I said. “ It would be perfectly hon¬ 
est. I should get no benefit from it.” 

“ It wouldn’t be just.” She added: “ And you are 
just.” 

We took another turn along the lawn and back 
again. “ If I gave way, would you go on paying me 
compliments ? ” I said. So it ended in laughter and— 
thank God—not bitter laughter. But she didn’t know 
how unhappy I was. 

I think I can accept the inevitable as well as most 
people, but here it seemed that there might be, after 
all, a way out. I felt the hopelessness of active inter¬ 
ference, of attempts at direction and control, and yet 
I felt, too, that with these wayward, incalculable young 
people mere accident might prevail; they were such a 
mixture of instinct, reason and the romantic conven¬ 
tions. And I wasn’t much better myself. Was I in 


MY DAUGHTER HELEN 


98 

the position of one who would separate Paola and 
Francesca or Romeo and Juliet? Were my cares and 
precautions those of a huckster or of a precisian? I 
seemed to know amazingly little about Marmaduke, 
and, again, I could have sworn I knew him thoroughly. 

One afternoon at the Sports Club I saw him and An¬ 
tony side by side in deck-chairs, and they were talking 
together earnestly. Antony seemed to be voluble for 
once, and my instinct told me that nothing but Helen 
could bring such a tension between them. I was to 
learn later that they had discussed whether Antony 
should be the best man when Helen and Marmaduke 
married. But the discussion was not confined to that. 

Presently Antony went away, with a friendly touch 
on Marmaduke’s shoulder. I joined him. We sat 
facing an empty tennis-court; a set was over, another 
had not been formed. He told me that Antony had 
been giving him a tremendous lecture on the duties and 
responsibilities of married life. My heart sank; they 
had got as far as that! I was ready to resent any face¬ 
tious handling of the subject, but Marmaduke said: 
“ He’s a great fellow—Antony. I’m a wretched little 
squirt beside him. I see your point.” 

“ You see what isn’t there, I fancy,” said I. 

“You are too generous to formulate it,” he said; 
“ or too discreet.” 

I thought: What a curious modification! This fel¬ 
low will be interesting at least. 

We sat silent awhile, and then I perceived Helen 
coming toward us. I glanced at Marmaduke and he 
was watching her with an eager fixity. I was startled 


MY DAUGHTER HELEN 


99 


to see tears in his eyes. Were they signs of weakness 
or of strength? She sat down with us, and it came 
to me that I had never seen them together as I saw 
them now, and that it was all very serious and out of 
my control. I turned from one to the other in anxious 
curiosity. Looking at Helen, I could almost conceive a 
maternal relation. They spoke together, disregarding 
me, but I think Helen was managing us. I had to 
learn things; I had to be taken a little further. She 
said to Marmaduke: “ Will Antony ? ” 

“ He will if you want it,” Marmaduke said. 

“ I do want it,” she said. “ It will be best for him.” 
And then she added: “ There’s no silly tragedy about 
Antony. He feels it that I won’t marry him. He 
feels it simply. There’s nothing dark and sinister in 
him. What would you do, in a like case, Marmy? 
You wouldn’t behave so well.” 

She seemed to be studying him. He was frowning 
and fidgeting. With a certain ruthlessness she con¬ 
tinued : “ Antony would go on faithfully for ever.” 
And then she looked at me. She was ready to experi¬ 
ment, to probe, to face anything that must be faced. 
She turned to him again and he muttered: “ Don’t tor¬ 
ture me.” 

She said: “ He loves me more now than Antony ever 
could.” 

“ Now! ” he cried. “ Oh, yes, I’m unstable. I get 
through things. That’s what she means. Be safe. 
Take your Antony.” 

She said: “ Marmaduke is necessary to me now. I 
can’t go back to what’s safe and happy.” 


IOO 


MY DAUGHTER HELEN 


In my ignoble egoism I felt that I had lost her and 
I said to Marmaduke brutally: “ Why, man! She 
pities you/’ 

“Why not?” he said, but he was pale and trem¬ 
bling. “ I am pitiable. She pities every one. She 
pities you. But I’m more than pitiable. She’s mine.” 

“ That’s it,” said Helen. 

“ Can you keep it at this pitch? ” I said. “ Are you 
faithful?” 

Marmaduke said: “ I am here and now. I know 
nothing of the future.” 

She said: “ I take the risk.” 

I knew that it was over. My mind said to me: 
They are fine creatures, both. This is adequate. I 
shall get outside this and appreciate it. But I felt 
wronged and desolate. I was forsaken and cast off. 
We said no more then. Some people came to the va¬ 
cant tennis-court in front of us. They eyed us curi¬ 
ously. I got up and went away, leaving Helen and 
Marmaduke to watch the game. I touched Marma¬ 
duke on the shoulder as Antony had done, and he 
looked at me with startled eyes. I think he was grate¬ 
ful. I encountered friends, and they were in the nod 
and wink stage of understanding about Helen and 
Marmaduke. I simulated, drearily enough, a jocosity 
of discretion. 

When Helen and I went down the hill she took my 
arm and we walked in silence for a time. Then she 
said: “ My happy days are past.” 

“You mustn’t say that,” I said. “That’s not 
loyal.” 


MY DAUGHTER HELEN ioi 

“ Yes it is,” she said, and then: “ I want to live my 
life with you over and over.” 

“ You shall,” I said, but I knew this was merely 
carrying on the conversation. 

“ I can’t,” she said. “ It’s past.” And I knew that 
it was past. 


Chapter 12 

M armaduke, of course, is the villain of the piece, 
and not so much of a villain either. In my 
old-fashioned way I may put it that he lacked prin¬ 
ciple. He took no thought for the morrow and, 
though one agrees that it is easy to take too much, 
you must take some. Those who don’t, force others to 
do it for them, and they are anything down to mean 
brutes. Marmaduke wasn’t exactly a spendthrift, but 
he was capable of easy, genial expansions; he couldn’t 
afford a club, but he joined one; moderate lodgings, 
such as ours at Hartsop, should have sufficed for their 
holidays, but he led the way to hotels as the easier line 
of resistance; circumstances would have excused high 
tea in the evenings, but he was accustomed to dine. 
And when Helen was not there he had a tendency to 
sponge. She had a conscience and didn’t let him be 
extravagant at home, but—it is a wretched thing to 
record—he would make a little too free with other 
people’s cigars and, generally, it seemed that his period 
of straitened circumstances had induced the habit of 
tucking in when he got the chance. He didn’t try to 
borrow money from me, and I don’t think Randal gave 
him much encouragement, but he took money from 
Antony. He would gaily compare himself with Har¬ 
old Skimpole, the difference being, he said, that he 
didn’t attempt to humbug anyone. He rubbed along 
102 


MY DAUGHTER HELEN 


103 


at his old work and appeared to be doing slightly bet¬ 
ter; he was far too indolent to force a change. He 
still managed to justify himself by entertaining his 
company. When he was at his best Helen would 
glance from one to the other of us quickly. Did we 
perceive ? Did we appreciate ? And, indeed, you can’t 
harbour contempt for the man who holds his own 
and more in the verbal interchange. The solid, sullen 
virtues can’t stand against that. 

When Helen’s children began to come I had to give 
definite help. Marmaduke agreed with easy gracious¬ 
ness, Helen without parade of gratitude, in simple 
acquiescence. Randal wanted me to make advances to 
her from his fortune, but I refused; I think he offered 
money saved from his allowance, but she wouldn’t 
have that. It wasn’t very comfortable. Helen was 
loyal to her husband, which meant that between us a 
great part of her life was unexplored. We were on 
affectionate terms. Oh, yes! Affectionate terms. We 
talked intimately sometimes, but it was always cau¬ 
tiously. We had all agreed to take Marmaduke as we 
found him, and I think he had some notion that as he 
entertained us it was only fair that we should pay. I 
wondered whether Helen considered him, weighed 
him. Was a blind acceptance possible ? Was it possi¬ 
ble that the romantic illusion persisted? He might 
have been everything that was great and good. I 
think that she saw everything and accepted it. She 
was too proud for excuses, and might even pretend to 
herself that it was all in the bargain. She worked like 
a horse. She suckled the children, nursed them, 


104 


MY DAUGHTER HELEN 


brought them up. She fed them, she dosed them, 
amused them, punished them, played with them. She 
made their clothes and cut their hair. They came rap¬ 
idly—three in three years—and yet she was hardly 
ever out of action. She had fine health, and so had hei: 
children. Apart from them she hardly had a day’s 
holiday. And it might have been that she kept them 
as a guard about her. Who could think of her life as 
failure when they were there? She was a triumphant 
mother. When I played up to her as the triumphant 
grandfather we were happy together. I might shake 
my head in private over Marmaduke, but the children 
were all right. There was no decadence about them; 
Helen had enough vitality for two. 

Marmaduke made quite a kind, jolly father. He 
possessed the virtues for which there was nothing to 
pay. If you were to put it to him that his child wanted 
a pair of boots he would doubtless put his hand into 
his pocket. If he drew it out empty the matter would 
go out of his mind. Of course if this illustration be¬ 
came a particular case he would disclaim responsibility. 
This was not his department but Helen’s. At times 
I hated him from the bottom of my soul. Generally 
we got on very well. 

I found it difficult to conceive their life together. In 
public she paid him a slightly exaggerated respect. 
The children, I could see, would be brought up in old- 
fashioned reverence for their father. It’s no use. It’s 
too late for that. The father must continually justify 
himself nowadays, while childish aberrations remain 
the indication of character and enterprise. (One had 


MY DAUGHTER HELEN 


105 


these pettish reactions.) The mother has justified 
herself all the time. Helen kept her little house won¬ 
derfully and turned an orderly front to the world. 
Their financial affairs muddled on; they were beyond 
Helen’s control. Marmaduke was still a man without 
a future. He was static; there were times when he 
seemed to be negligible. But he wasn’t that. 

Antony came to me in some distress. He said he 
had quarrelled with Marmaduke, which he hated to 
do, had sworn he never would do. It was about 
money, too. “ But how the dickens,” I said, “ could 
you quarrel about money ? ” I had a notion, and it 
was, indeed, that he had at last objected to go on lend¬ 
ing. His advances had become so regular that they 
amounted to a kind of annuity. It was a condition 
that Helen was not to know, and, of course, Antony’s 
intention was to relieve the pressure upon her. But 
now it had become clear to Antony that Marmaduke 
was using the money to speculate with, and so, as he 
lost much more than he gained, there was no help to 
Helen at all. “ And so I told him,” said Antony, 
“ that he must promise not to do this silly gambling 
with my money, and he said that a gentleman never 
asked another for a promise. It annoyed me, and I 
told him to go to blazes.” 

The good fellow was quite distressed at the idea 
that he was losing this means of unproductive expendi-. 
ture. He was a quiet giver, and I was puzzled, at 
first, to know why he had told me about this. But 
“ Mr. Daunt,” he said, “ you must stop him. I’m 
afraid, I’m sure, he’s playing the fool. He wants 


io6 MY DAUGHTER HELEN 

money, he’s harassed—it’s difficult for me to speak. 
He’ll come back to me, he’ll accept my terms; he’ll 
promise, but he won’t keep his promise. I’m sorry to 
say this.” 

“ My dear fellow,” I said, “ you’ve earned the right 
to say anything you please. You’re a man in a thou¬ 
sand. I’m ashamed, I’m moved—yes, and I’m proud 
—when I think of what you’ve lost and suffered and 
endured. You’re a splendid figure, but I think of you 
sometimes as the man in a hair-shirt.” 

He looked astonished. I felt rather embarrassed 
myself. It was some satisfaction, though, to say what 
I thought about him. Somehow, we all took Antony 
for granted. He had every encouragement to be bla¬ 
tant, and the more imposing and grandiose he was, 
the more modest he became. And now, at my out¬ 
burst, he stared and said: “ Oh, as to that, I have a 
pretty good time.” 

A pretty good time. I suppose I was having one 
myself. It is something to grow old without coming 
to disaster, and there was nothing in my circumstances 
inconsistent with a pretty good time. It is true that 
Helen had not married to my liking, but I was a 
grandfather now and had a proper joy in the young¬ 
sters. I didn’t even shudder when I saw a feature or 
an expression of Marmaduke’s coming out; I didn’t 
worry myself with thinking that his less admirable 
traits would be repeated in them. It may be a salutary 
reflection that if you have offspring at all you are 
likely, soon or late, to have your share in producing a 
slacker, a fool or a positive criminal. You cannot tie 


MY DAUGHTER HELEN 


107 


up your money safely for ever and you cannot, even 
with the aid of eugenics and education, perpetuate your 
excellencies through the generations. Happily, the 
criminal, in his turn, cannot ensure that he will not 
produce the saint. And, in the economy of nature, a 
potential criminal may make a charming baby. Mar- 
maduke could still be a capital companion, and one 
made a mistake in regarding him in relation to the 
ages and righteousness generally. He was the kind of 
person who brought things to grief, but we always feel 
that a shaky institution will last our time. 

There comes a time when you want just rest and 
peace, but you mustn’t let it come too soon. And here 
was I, an amateur of feelings and emotions, aiming 
to shape them into beauty, and yet wanting peace. 
They say that the old don’t feel deeply, but when are 
you old ? When is it time for the artist in tragedy to 
turn from his attempt to express great emotions and 
adopt the quiet chronicle, the quiet story? Grief 
makes channels that deepen with age, but grief at last 
becomes a ritual, and you may exercise your rite when 
feelings are dead. And love may settle into the ruts 
of affection. A time may come when life is not infi¬ 
nitely fresh and various, though you may hail it with 
clamorous pretences. Perhaps I should be grateful to 
Marmaduke for keeping me alive, but at the time I 
cursed him as heartily as the most conventional could 
wish. This was in private or with Randal and An¬ 
tony; one couldn’t beat the man himself when he was 
down, and with Helen it was a case for perpetual solici¬ 
tude. 


io8 


MY DAUGHTER HELEN 


I was alarmed at what Antony had told me, and I 
went, the next evening, to the little house in the undis¬ 
tinguished Manchester suburb where Helen lived. The 
house had been taken—you could hardly say chosen— 
for want of something better within their means. It 
was in a terrace on a quiet road, and its architecture 
was of the Victorian kind which superimposed liveli¬ 
ness on dullness. But the interior of the house was 
beautiful, or, at least, it contained many beautiful 
things. Helen had fine taste and Marmaduke con¬ 
noisseur’s taste. It was astonishing to turn into the 
dingy little house and find there a beautiful home. I 
suppose that, by modern standards, Helen was some¬ 
thing of a martinet with her children. They had large 
measures of freedom, but there was some standard of 
decorum which, if not rigid, was persistent. She 
toiled for them, and it was to some purpose. Randal 
and I regarded this house in Manchester as a tempo¬ 
rary lodging, but we hadn’t induced Helen to come to 
Darley, and Marmaduke was indolently attached to 
club life. I think Helen shrank from the taking up of 
threads of old Darley life. 

And this little house of theirs wasn’t a bad home to 
come back to. Marmaduke had had some happy times 
there, but he was out a good deal now. I suppose 
his wit and aptitudes made him a popular figure or 
a prominent one, and his habits had become very 
much those of a bachelor. There are two kinds of 
husbands—those who say where they have been and 
those who don’t, and “ the club ” became representa¬ 
tive or symbolic. You may get rest and ease at the 


MY DAUGHTER HELEN 


109 


club, but the club habit doesn’t always make for the 
spiritual life. Randal had said sadly that he had “ lost 
joy” in Marmaduke; more acidly he had described 
him as “ in danger of frisky middle-age.” With Helen 
Marmaduke preserved the forms, and when I was with 
them there was, I think, an increased punctiliousness. 
I had thought his passion for Helen the noblest thing 
about him, but it had faded and shrunk; something of 
affection remained, for she looked after him and wasn’t 
reproachful. And even now, with her children about 
her, I think he often possessed her mind. She was to 
him like a mother whose son is “ a little wild ” and 
may become wilder. 

Beset with misgivings, I entered the house. The 
children were soon toddling and crowing about me, 
herded by Helen, and all was well. Not quite; I saw 
anxiety and questioning in her eyes. 

Presently the maid came and took the children away. 
She was nurse and housemaid and everything and 
Helen’s sworn friend and supporter. Helen was a 
worker who did not become a drudge, but time began 
to show its traces; her youth was crossed with endur¬ 
ance. We sat together looking at one another solici¬ 
tously. She was in trouble, and that made her think of 
me anxiously, but her trouble was pressing. I said: 
“ What is it ? ” and she replied: “ It’s bothering for 
you.” I said: “Make the bother big enough. You 
know I’d do anything in the world for you.” 

“ I take from you,” she said. “ I take. I never 
give.” 


no 


MY DAUGHTER HELEN 


“ Why! ” I cried, “ among other things you’ve 
given me three grandchildren/’ 

“ You are not old, though,” she said; “ you are not 
as old as me.” 

And I could have wept with her for her lost youth. 
I said: “ You pass from one glory to another; you are 
a mother now.” 

“ I am not complaining,” she said. 

And we sat and looked at one another, recapturing 
the old times. I was very nearly happy, but I said 
again: “ What is it? ” 

“ I hate to talk about money,” she said, “ and I 
can’t do it without saying something about Marma- 
duke. I hate to talk to you about him.” 

“ But, my dear,” I said, “ don’t let’s be afraid of 
Marmaduke. We’re agreed that he isn’t a model of 
discretion, confound him! But, after all, he’s Marma¬ 
duke. Let’s put our heads together and make him toe 
the line.” I mixed a metaphor or two in aiming 
at a general effect. 

“ I’m afraid this time,” she said. “ He keeps say¬ 
ing strange things to me. I ask him to explain. He 
wants money, a lot of money. I know that. He al¬ 
ways wanted tnoney, but this is different. I suppose a 
speculation has gone wrong. I can’t check him now. 
The children—I was thinking—I’m nearly twenty-five 
now. Is there any way? I know you’ve done all you 

could. But to raise money now—if—if- And 

we’ve debts and debts.” 

“ We’ll have a talk when he comes in,” I said, but we 
had to wait a long time. She went away to look after 



MY DAUGHTER HELEN 


hi 


the little ones and then to help to prepare our meal, and 
I was left to sombre meditation. At last, as we sat 
talking disjointedly and listening and it was nearly 
time for me to go to catch my last train, we heard his 
latchkey scratching. He was not drunk, but he was 
slightly intoxicated, which was a very unusual thing 
with him. Helen became stony, and it seemed to me 
that this was no time for our talk. He displayed a 
hectic liveliness. He told us he had had a great day. 
Helen was silent, and I said, “ What kind of a great 
day? ” 

“ Emotional experiences/' he said. “ The only kind 
there is." 

Rather languidly I continued: “ I suppose they had 
some kind of framework? " 

He chuckled, but the chuckle didn't ring true. He 
affected to be gazing at some image hidden from us; 
he had a private source of entertainment which he 
wouldn't reveal, but he wanted us to believe in it. I 
didn’t like the look of him at all. He struck me as 
reckless or close upon recklessness; his manner to me 
was not as respectful as usual; he glanced quickly at 
Helen once or twice, but they had hardly entered into 
relations yet. I didn’t like to leave her. I wanted to 
be there to protect her; not from any brutality, of 
course, but from what he called “ emotional experi¬ 
ences." I thought of having it out with him then and 
there, and it even occurred to me that he would sober 
as the night went on. But Helen told me, decisively, 
to be gone. I said to her: “ I'll miss it if you like," 
but she shook her head. 


112 


MY DAUGHTER HELEN 


Marmaduke became affable with me. “ I should 
enjoy a talk,” he said. “ Why not stay? I’ll find you 
some pyjamas and a toothpick—toothbrush. A civil¬ 
ized household always has a new toothbrush done up 
in white tissue-paper. I insist on that. By the by,” 
and he laughed vacantly, “ I breakfasted with old 
Hucklow this morning.” 

He gave us this information swaggeringly, and it 
was surprising. Hucklow was the more portly of the 
two partners whom I had once encountered on Mar- 
maduke’s behalf. I didn’t know that Marmaduke was 
on breakfasting terms with him, and it suggested that 
he was making some kind of progress. The incident 
recalled, rather ludicrously, college breakfasts or the 
attempt, occasionally made in the suburbs, to catch their 
atmosphere. But Hucklow seemed the most improb¬ 
able of hosts. 

“ Anyone else there ? ” I asked, and Marmaduke said, 
“ No, no. The fact is, I wanted to consult him about 
a little matter. He comes down rather late now. I 
know his habits.” 

He began to chuckle again and repeated, “ Oh, yes, I 
know his habits.” 

There was a puzzling fatuousness about him. I be¬ 
gan to think that he was more drunk than I had sup¬ 
posed. 

“ I saw old Antony at the club,” he said. “ Dron¬ 
ing away.” 

“ What do you mean by ‘ droning away ' ? ” I said. 

“ I defend the phrase,” Marmaduke said. “ Not 
literally true, of course, but the old boy can give you 


MY DAUGHTER HELEN 113 

that impression without saying a word. Rum thing.” 

I looked at my watch and stood up. “ We must 
have a talk another time,” I said. 

“ A talk ? ” he said. “ The only talk that’s any 
good to me-” he stopped, and then with remark¬ 

able calmness he said: “ I suppose you don’t want to 
lend me five thousand pounds ? ” 

I said: “ You may be sure I shan’t do that.” 

“ You’re not an ungenerous man,” Marmaduke said, 
“ but you’re a bit close with your money. And per¬ 
haps you’re right. I don’t know that the five thousand 
would be any good to me—now. But sometime within 
the next week or two I’d better have a talk with you.” 

I nodded. He seemed to be sobering already. Helen 
looked at him almost for the first time. He uttered 
some awful facetiousness about catching it when I’d 
gone. His imitation high spirits had subsided. I left 
them with a heavy heart. 

The horrid phrase “ emotional experiences ” had got 
into my mind. In the railway carriage I sat wonder¬ 
ing what those two had been saying to one another. 
Or had Helen maintained that stony aspect? I was 
utterly unable to conceive her in a quarreling scene 
with her husband, and yet she was not made for sub¬ 
mission. If you won’t quarrel and you won’t submit 
you must be, surely, a powerful personage, and I could 
almost have laughed to think that Marmaduke wasn’t 
exactly master in his house. But without being mas¬ 
ter, you can bring the house to destruction; you may 
be a fool and bring down the house overwhelmingly 
upon your betters. 



MY DAUGHTER HELEN 


114 

Antony was waiting for me at Darley Station, and 
I felt the good fellow’s face to be an ill omen. He 
walked up my hill with me, after saying that he wanted 
to come in and talk. It seemed that he was afraid of 
the shadows, and when we got into my sitting-room I 
had the absurd idea that before opening out he would 
; see that the windows were shut and listen at the door. 
He didn’t do that, but he waived aside the invitation 
to whisky and cigarettes. I was thirsty, I was parched; 
I felt that a drink would help me. I poured out a little 
whisky and a great deal of soda-water, and then An¬ 
tony said, “ I believe I am thirsty.” So we stood oppo¬ 
site to one another quaffing and there was a strange air 
of geniality and entertainment about it. I did feel 
thankful for him. He was as solid as a rock; he was 
good, and I like goodness. It may be ridiculous to say 
it, but I can only like people who are good. The others 
may entertain me, but I don’t like them. But what is 
goodness ? I don’t think that there is really any diffi¬ 
culty about that. 

Antony put down his glass and then he accepted a 
cigarette. He sat down and tapped it on the palm of 
his hand. He was hesitating, but he made his plunge. 
He said: “ I saw Marmaduke at the club to-night.” 

I said: “ I was with Helen when he came home.” 

He reflected upon that, and I imagined that he had 
an uncomfortable impression of Marmaduke’s return 
to his home. Then he said: “ I’m afraid he was play¬ 
ing the fool.” 

“ Do you mean to-night or generally ? ” I said. 

“ Both,” said Antony. 


MY DAUGHTER HELEN 


H 5 

" How about to-night? ” I asked. 

“ Well, he made himself very conspicuous after din¬ 
ner. Men wanted to play bridge quietly and he kept 
bawling out. He insulted old Rood. He accused him 
of always trying to get in with weaker players so as to 
win and he said it was worse than cheating; that some 
pluck was wanted for that. There’ll be a row, espe¬ 
cially as there’s something in what he said. And then 
he went on to a general defence of criminals. He said 
they were no worse than anybody else. He said he 
could prove it. I don’t know what he meant.” 

“ Quite a favourite paradox, isn’t it? ” I said. 

“ I dare say,” said Antony, “ but he seemed to make 
it significant. And it’s rather curious that he was 
talking like this before Bradwell.” 

“ Bradwell ? ” 

“Of Bradwell & Perry.” 

“ The stockbrokers ? ” 

“ Yes. His stockbrokers.” 

“ What’s the point? ” 

“ When Marmaduke had gone,” Antony said, 
“ Bradwell came to me and we talked together in a 
corner about him. Bradwell isn’t a bad fellow, and he 
told me he was anxious about him. He knew I was 
Marmaduke’s friend, and said I mustn’t let him pump 
me more than I liked. But if I liked to tell him any¬ 
thing helpful about Marmaduke’s resources—well, we 
got rather confidential. I fancy he violated profes¬ 
sional etiquette, which is a pretty serious thing to do. 
You see, Marmaduke has had a speculative account 
open—he’s gone bull on several things and they’ve 


n6 


MY DAUGHTER HELEN 


slumped fearfully. The differences have been piling 
up and Bradwell couldn’t go on without some secur- 
ity.” 

“ And Marmaduke had none to offer.” 

“Yes, he had. That’s the curious thing; he had.” 

“ Did Bradwell tell you what they are ? ” 

“ He did. I’ve forgotten for the moment. Quite 
good industrial debentures transferred to him recently, 
it seems.” 

“ But how on earth could Marmaduke buy for in¬ 
vestment like this ? He never has any money. These 
fools let him speculate, but it’s at their own risk.” 

“ It’s an insoluble mystery,” said Antony. 

“ It can’t be insoluble,” I said. 

We sat staring at one another, and it came to me 
that Antony had yet something to say. 

“Well?” I said. 

“ Bradwell told me something rather curious. 
You’ll understand that he hadn’t any business to do it. 
This was a confidential talk—on both sides.” 

“Well?” 

“ It seems that these debentures, or whatever they 
are, had been transferred from Hucklow to Marma¬ 
duke.” 

“ That’s very odd,” I said. 

“ Bradwell thought it odd,” said Antony. 

“ What’s the inwardness of it all? ” I said. 

“ Mr. Daunt, I must tell you. Bradwell has a very 
ugly suspicion.” 

My mind darted to Helen. “ What is it ? ” I said. 


MY DAUGHTER HELEN 117 

“ He suspects that the scrip is stolen and the trans¬ 
fer forged.” 

My apprehensions seemed to materialize suddenly 
and to deal me a blow. I said, “ Incredible! ” and in 
a moment I felt it wasn’t incredible at all. I spared 
Antony any further exclamations. I said: “ How far 
have things gone? What has Bradwell done? ” 

“ He’s in an awkward position. He isn’t sure and 
he’s afraid of a mistake.” 

“ What has he done? ” 

“To begin with, he’s closed the account.” 

“ Well?” 

“ He saw Marmaduke yesterday and questioned 
him. Marmaduke was sulky and took the high horse. 
Bradwell said he must write to Hucklow and ask him a 
question. I don’t know exactly how he would put it.” 

“ Yes.” 

“And did he?” 

“What did Hucklow say?” 

“ Bradwell was waiting. He’s heard nothing to¬ 
day.” 

“ Marmaduke knew he was writing? ” 

“ I suppose so.” 

“ But,” I said, “ granting that Marmaduke would 
do this, it’s a preposterous expedient. It must get 
found out.” 

“ I imagine him to be desperate,” said Antony. “ If 
the stock had gone up he might conceivably have got 
the scrip back and put it where he found it. If Huck¬ 
low looked at it he would see it had been tampered 


n 8 MY DAUGHTER HELEN 

with, but these investment securities lie undisturbed in 
safes for years.” 

“ You say Hucklow didn’t reply to Bradwell?” 

“ He had heard nothing yesterday.” 

“ Why! ” I said, “ Marmaduke told me that he 
breakfasted with Hucklow yesterday.” 

Antony stared at this. “ Queer,” he said. 

“ There’s so much that’s queer that we’il hope it’s 
not as bad as it looks,” I said. And then I added: 
“ I suppose I ought to be angry with you for making 
these aspersions on my son-in-law.” It was a dreary 
piece of facetiousness. 

Antony said: “ It hurts me, too.” 

I was hopeless. And between us was the conscious¬ 
ness that an awful calamity was descending on Helen, 
that nothing could be done. And yet some attempt 
at prevention, at mitigation, must be made. Antony 
rose to go, with some commonplace about the impossi¬ 
bility of doing anything to-night. It occurred to me 
that I might, even now, get a car and drive in to Man¬ 
chester, rouse the sleeping house and compel Marma¬ 
duke to an explanation. To what end? I was hope¬ 
less. The morning would come soon enough. The 
calamity was upon us, and as yet I couldn’t see be¬ 
hind it. 

I walked with Antony to the gate and said good¬ 
night to him under the dome of stars. I heard his 
footsteps die away. I was encompassed with quiet, 
with safety. Who was it that said, “ Godly night ” ? 
Who called it that? I must be up betimes. It was 
midnight, and perhaps she was sleeping now, sleeping 


MY DAUGHTER HELEN 119 

by her husband. The night was about them, too. All 
the menacing, clutching forces were suspended. Poor 
Antony! He must say to himself sometimes: If only 
she had married me. But there was no triumph here 
for him. He had said that this hurt him, and it was 
true. Randal must be told. She had a sufficiency of 
useless protectors. I must be up betimes. It would 
be queer if I overslept myself. A kind of joke! While 
the world exists it will never be without its jokes. 


Chapter 13 


I caught an early morning train to Manchester 
and received the facetious congratulations of ac¬ 
quaintances, some of whom were mildly curious about 
my business. Feeling that no time should be lost, I 
took a taxi to the house. As I turned after paying the 
man, I saw Helen’s staring face at the window. She 
let me in and I kissed her, but she was cold and her 
eyes were wide upon me. She didn’t make a specific 
inquiry. It seemed that calamity was in the air. She 
told me that Marmaduke was still abed and “ saw no 
good in getting up.” She was giving the children their 
breakfasts, immersed in blessed routine. I had a 
glimpse of them, poor innocents, and did my best at 
hearty, jocular greetings. They were splashing their 
porridge about in quite a reassuring way. 

Then I went up and knocked at Marmaduke’s door. 
He grunted forbiddingly, but I went into the room. 
His eyes were startled and inquiring. I said I wanted 
him to get up and come down at once, that I had some¬ 
thing to say to him. Sullenly he said, “ Can’t you say 
it here?” 

I considered that, and said No. It didn’t seem the 
proper setting and we must be about and doing some¬ 
thing. 

Helen came in and I liked the environment less than 


120 


MY DAUGHTER HELEN 121 

ever. He sprawled on a great bed which they occu¬ 
pied together commonly, and he looked like a naughty 
child. She said: “What is it?” I hadn’t made up 
my mind whether I wanted him alone or whether we 
had better all plunge into it at once. It seemed impos¬ 
sible now to wait while he dressed and shaved. A > 
strange question flitted across my mind. Would he 
be the more likely to cut his throat before or after our 
discussion? It would be a horrible simplification and 
I recoiled from it. Looking at the figure on the bed, 

I hardly feared it. 

And Helen was there, and she was what mattered 
and we must get on: we were doing nothing. The 
chance that he was an innocent man maligned was neg¬ 
ligible. Poor devil! Apparent guilt was seen in him. 
So it seemed to me as he lay there watching us. He 
didn’t ask for any explanation of my visit, but Helen 
said again, “What’s the matter?” And I could al¬ 
most have believed that she wasn’t interested in the 
reply. 

I turned to Marmaduke and said: “ Tell her.” And 
then it seemed to me that this was hardly fair. I said: 
“You gave Bradwell some securities. What’s wrong 
with them?” 

In a lamentable voice he said, “ Already ? ” He sat 
up in bed and clasped his knees, tucking them under his 
chin. Then he said: “ Who told you ? ” 

Helen stood regarding him gravely. I turned to her 
and said: “ Marmaduke is a child, and this time, he’s 
a bad child. He’s in an awful mess.” 

“ How do you know about it? ” said he. 


122 


MY DAUGHTER HELEN 


I told them what I had heard from Antony and at 
his name Marmaduke frowned and looked at Helen. 
She listened silently, and I wished that she would say 
something. Perhaps the technical terms were strange 
to her, but she didn’t interrupt. I should have been 
ready to discuss forgery as an everyday matter that 
might happen to any of us, if that could have helped 
her. Marmaduke was gloomy, but he began to chuckle 
at one point. This was when I referred to the letter 
Brad well had sent to Hucklow. “ He never got it,” 
said Marmaduke, and then the poor fool explained 
how he had intercepted it. He was at the office early 
in the morning and couldn’t find it among the letters 
waiting to be opened. “ You see,” he said, “ I had to 
get hold of that other letter, the one from the company 
to Hucklow about the transfer. But Bradwell had 
written to Hucklow’s private house. I thought that 
must be it and I rushed off there.” 

“ I know his habits,” continued Marmaduke tri¬ 
umphantly, “ and so I got into his library. Think of 
a fellow like that with a library! I suppose he bought 
the books at so much the square yard. Well, I got the 
letter—smelt it out—and presently in comes Hucklow 
and I had a bogus consultation with him about nothing 
in particular. I made him invite me to breakfast; I 
was determined on that. He didn’t want me, but I 
made up a story about missing my breakfast and he 
couldn’t very well avoid—you see, I thought the situa¬ 
tion would be piquant. I’m playing for small stakes 
now. It’s no good. Of course I see that. It’s like 
pulling the rudder hard in a bumping race when you 


MY DAUGHTER HELEN 123 

know they’ve got you. Merely a gesture for my own 
amusement.” 

He talked rapidly, and in some excitement. His 
mind clung to the details of his paltry exploit. It was 
awful frivolity and I saw him as a light fellow with 
whom, incredibly, we had become entangled. He 
didn’t want to face what must be faced, but yet I could 
see that his eye was on Helen. Was it in commisera¬ 
tion, deprecation, remorse? It came upon me that I 
didn’t know these people. I didn’t know what their 
relations were and perhaps they didn’t know much 
themselves. As a novelist, I spend my life in the study 
and exposition of the relations of men and women, 
and here, before my eyes, was a case, a simple case, 
and I was baffled and bewildered. I had never under¬ 
stood Helen with Marmaduke, though I had had 
glimpses, made guesses. Now, it was all strange and 
unexplored. Surely he wasn’t merely light, however 
reckless he might be. He had ideas that were not just 
the froth of wit. And he had loved Helen passion¬ 
ately; I believed that. His love might be overlaid, 
diminished, thwarted, merged in his own wretched 
egoism, but once it was upspringing, even noble. We 
are at the mercy of time and chance. 

And she, in some fashion, had loved him. She had, 
as they say, “ taken him on,” and she wasn’t one to 
let go. He was still her husband and the father of her 
children. And at last she spoke to him. She said: 
“ Does it mean that you forged ? ” 

“ There you are! ” he cried. “ The power of words! 
A forger! It’s a trifling matter. It’s a comparatively 


124 


MY DAUGHTER HELEN 


clean crime. I’m very much as I was before. Per¬ 
haps I wasn’t very much before. The law gets the 
proportions all wrong. Wife-beating now! Or rob¬ 
bing poor people! Who suffers by what I’ve done? 
Only people who can afford it.” 

“ That’s rather difficult to arrange,” I said sardoni¬ 
cally. 

“ I tell you I thought it out,” he said. “ Of course 
I’d have put it straight if Bradwell had kept quiet and 
these damned things had gone up as they ought to do.” 

“ How could you,” I said, “ when you’d tampered 
with the papers ? ” 

“ Put ’em back,” he said. “ A bit of scratching out. 
They mightn’t have been disturbed for years, and if 
they were, who’s to know what happened ? ” 

“ You thought it out ? ” I said. “ Did you think 
of your wife and children? ” 

“ I suppose I’m a selfish brute,” he said. And then 
he turned to her. “ There’s no possible defence. I’m 
an egoist. I’m a bad kind of egoist. I’ve no respect 
for law except that it might hurt me. It’s going to 
hurt me. But I’ve been treacherous to you—even you. 
And there are those poor little children downstairs. 
I’m a colossal fool, that’s all. I’m not hard enough 
to be a good criminal. How could I do it? That 
bothers me. An egoist is a monomaniac. It was a 
sort of adventure. It might have come out all right.” 

This was all pretty cool, but I saw that he was trem¬ 
bling. And suddenly he showed his excitement. He 
flung out his hands. “ What can I do?” he cried. 
“ I’m ready to make amends now, when it’s impossi- 


125 


MY DAUGHTER HELEN 

ble. Any nobility of sacrifice would be easy to me 
now. Just tell me what to do.” 

He was still interested in himself, but he wasn’t 
ready for the exercise of any stern thought. I was 
sorry for him, but I didn’t accomplish a sympathetic 
tone when I told him that the first thing was to dress 
and come downstairs. He looked terrified at the idea 
of coming down. He was merely dilatory; he had no 
programme, no plan; he wanted to lie in bed and talk. 
He could talk as well as anybody, but if he tried to do 
something, he would lose his advantage. He looked 
from one to the other of us; his excitement had died 
down; I saw him as a frightened child. 

Helen had been staring at him with a set face, and 
I was actually conscious of a fear that she might be 
hard with him. It would be salutary, perhaps, but 
Helen as a hard, estranged wife would seem to me like 
the end of the world. And as I wondered and hesi¬ 
tated she moved to the bed, she sat on the edge of it 
beside him. He looked round in apprehension but, 
meeting her eyes, he bent towards her, and she took 
his head in the crook of her arm and laid it on her 
breast. He began to sob, and I felt that he shouldn’t 
have done that; it was intolerable. He went on sob¬ 
bing and sniffing, and I turned away. It wasn’t decent, 
it wasn’t right. I want the world to be decorous, I 
want fortitude; without that all is lost. I was weak¬ 
ened and humiliated. 

And yet, turning to look at her, I saw that all was 
not lost. Without weakness you cannot have strength ; 
in a stoical world there is no place for help. She com- 


126 


MY DAUGHTER HELEN 


forted him. You could believe that presently he would 
go to sleep, but there wasn’t time for that. She said 
to me, “ Can you save him ? ” and I replied, “ I’m here 
to attempt it.” 

And yet up to that moment I hadn’t a programme, I 
hadn’t an intention. I had reviewed possibilities, of 
course, and continually I came back to the idea that the 
man had done wrong and must take his punishment; 
that we must acquiesce in it; that this was the way of 
honour and dignity. And then, in a moment, this was 
swept away. My human instincts prevailed, and I felt 
that I must try to save my children. I had a great ac¬ 
cess of tenderness for Marmaduke. I couldn’t now 
dissociate him from her. I wasn’t a Roman father, 
and she, I suppose, would never make a Roman 
mother. 

Helen promised to produce him, dressed and shaved, 
in half an hour, and I went downstairs. Three merry 
young people were rattling their spoons, and presently 
their bibs were taken off and they tumbled about the 
room. I was left with the two eldest, and we played 
together in a fashion that was ineffective, lugubrious; 
I couldn’t strike the note. They began to quarrel, and 
I was ready to believe that it was typical of an ill- 
starred world. Helen came in and hustled them away. 
Marmaduke was trying to eat some breakfast that she 
had taken to him on a tray. She wanted to have a 
word with me. 

She wished to say that she trusted me utterly. I 
think she meant that she trusted me a long way, but 
that there was an uneasy corner in her mind yet. It 


MY DAUGHTER HELEN 127 

was about money. Would I be ready to bribe high 
enough? To satisfy these rapacious creatures? Her 
money, of course. And what about my own? She 
didn’t put it directly. I told her I was ready to com¬ 
pound a felony, to impoverish myself, to take any 
means to save him. She asked what compounding a 
felony was, and when I explained, she said: “ Then 
you might be sent to prison ? ” She looked at me with 
awe. Her eyes filled with tears and she said: “You 
mustn’t. You mustn’t do that.” I told her it was 
very unlikely that I should get the chance. Quickly she 
said: “ You mean that you can’t save him? ” 

I was sensitive to the shadow of reproach. I at¬ 
tempted reassurance; and I was conscious of my enor¬ 
mous importance to her. I was an heroic figure; even 
now I would bask in her admiration. I said, “ Leave 
it to me,” and I suppose I never uttered anything more 
fatuous. Then Marmaduke came in, and the poor 
wretch was not quite innocent of a snigger. He said 
that we were going to have a very interesting day, and 
then that he was thirsty, that he must have a drink. 
She let him have a whisky and soda. Her farewell of 
him, before the children, might have been just the daily 
habit. Yet there was to me a queer air of an excur¬ 
sion, an adventure. Marmaduke kissed all the chil¬ 
dren and set off with me jauntily. 


Chapter 14 


W e took the tram to town like respectable citi¬ 
zens, and it wasn’t easy to realize that our 
position was really so extraordinary. Marmaduke 
was humble and ready to accept any suggestion of 
mine. Looking round on our fellow-passengers he 
murmured: “ Happy bourgeois.” I think he wanted 
to establish command of himself; he was concerned in 
some kind of mental rehearsal. He appeared to as¬ 
sume that the murder was out or must be out imme¬ 
diately; that his exploit of the breakfast had only 
meant a slight delay. I had some curiosity about the 
steps of his reckless folly, but it was useless to question 
him now. Our plan was to see Bradwell, to see Huck- 
low; to make a clean breast of it; to pay all that was 
due. At the back of my mind was the idea of bribery. 
I didn’t know my men. And I didn’t know how far 
Bradwell had gone already. 

We called at his office, and I asked to see him. He 
was out, but they knew where he was and could put 
me in touch with him if it was important. I said it 
was. Marmaduke was hovering near when a tele¬ 
phone number was mentioned. He came up to me and 
whispered: “ That’s our number. Hucklow & Birchin. 
He’s there. The fat’s in the fire.” 

Almost immediately I was put in communication 
128 


MY DAUGHTER HELEN 


129 


with Bradwell. I told him I was speaking from his 
office and gave my name. “ Daunt ? 99 he repeated with 
a startled intonation. I said that my son-in-law was 
with me, and that we would both come across to see 
him and Mr. Hucklow. If he would kindly remain 
there we would be over in five minutes. 

He said, “ Wait a bit,” and there was a long pause. 
With the receiver at my ear I was conscious occasion¬ 
ally of the attenuation of angry utterances. At last 
Bradwell’s voice said: “ Fm afraid it’s useless for you 
to come here, Mr. Daunt.” I said: “ I must see you. 
It’s impossible to explain by telephone.” He said: 
“ It’s no use.” 

“ May I ask Mr. Hucklow to have a word with 
me?” 

There was a moment’s pause and the voice came: 
“ Mr. Hucklow declines.” 

“ Look here! ” I said. “ I demand to be treated 
with reason and courtesy. I propose to come over at 
once.” 

“ Wait,” he said. 

Presently the voice came: “If you’ll wait where you 
are I’ll come across.” 

I said: “ It will be far better for us to come over 
and see you together.” 

“ That’s impossible,” he said, and rang off. 

And then I became conscious of an audience. Curi¬ 
ous faces were peering at us. Marmaduke was well 
known at the office, and whether these people knew 
anything of our business or not they scented some¬ 
thing queer. I explained curtly to an attendant clerk 


130 


MY DAUGHTER HEBEN 


that Mr. Bradwell was coming over and we would 
wait. We were shown into an empty office. 

Marmaduke had heard my share of the conversa¬ 
tion and didn’t require much explanation. We stared 
at almanacs and charts and the dull paraphernalia of 
the office. I would have said something encouraging, 
but only the mere futilities occurred to me. It was 
horrible. Suddenly Marmaduke said: “ Will he bring 
a Bobby with him ? ” 

I was startled. I said: “ Oh, no! ” But I wasn’t 
sure. We were on quicksands. “ Not much good in 
making a rush,” said Marmaduke, and then he added: 
“ Poor Helen! ” 

And, indeed, for the moment I had forgotten Helen. 
The present fear, the sinister menace, were too acute. 
I tried to rally my thoughts. People do wrong and 
they must be punished. I’m enlightened and humane, 
and I conceive punishment as an attempt at adjust¬ 
ment to a natural order. But when frightful arrears 
of punishment have to be worked off! When the 
greatness of the crime demands the obliteration of the 
criminal! Would society be helped by putting Mar¬ 
maduke to pick oakum for years? Oakum or what¬ 
ever it is. 

My eye fell on a telephone, and it occurred to me 
that they might have let me use it here in private. No 
matter. I had an idea, and without appealing to Mar¬ 
maduke I looked up Hucklow’s number in the tele¬ 
phone book and made a memorandum on the blotting- 
paper. I wanted to be ready, alert. I thought of 
Helen then. 


MY DAUGHTER HELEN 131 

I’m too soft, perhaps. Marmaduke was spoiling 
Helen’s life and mine and sinning shamefully against 
the community, but here he was, a familiar young 
man; a friend; yes, a friend. And if I was miserable 
and dejected to an extreme degree, how was it with 
him? It’s too much to face. Prison! Is it possible 
to do anything bad enough for that? What could I 
do to comfort him? I put out my hand. I took his 

arm. “ My dear boy-” I began. I don’t know 

what I was going to say. The door opened and Brad- 
well came in alone. 

Our lives are commonly like the rehearsal of old 
pieces, and when we are given something new we don’t 
know how to act. Bradwell, I suppose, was a man of 
the world and not more ill-natured than most, but in a 
difficult situation he couldn’t behave properly. He 
wished to be firm, and so he adopted a bullying man¬ 
ner with large gestures of negation: “ Now, Mr. 
Daunt, it isn’t the slightest use ”—and so on. But 
it appeared that, whatever course he “ might have been 
disposed to adopt,” Hucklow was adamant. He played 
Hucklow after the manner of Mr. Spenlow and the in¬ 
exorable Jorkins. I tried to keep my temper. I ap¬ 
pealed to him. I flattered him. I felt that if I got 
angry all was lost. I suspected that he was very much 
to blame for Marmaduke’s excesses, that he had en¬ 
couraged him in these absurd speculations. I may 
have been unjust. Bradwell spoke now as business 
virtue incarnate, as the embodiment of honour and 
rectitude in affairs which had made England what it 
is. Marmaduke would have intervened, but I wouldn’t 



132 


MY DAUGHTER HELEN 


let him, fearing an indiscretion; I was quite capable 
of being effectively indiscreet myself. 

“ Bradwell,” I said, “ I speak to you as a humane 
and understanding man. Abney has done a frightful 
thing. There’s no defence, no excuse. But I ask you 
to take my point of view—to make it your own. It 
happens that no harm is done; the step can be recalled. 
What good will you do by sending him to prison? 
We’ll do anything in the world you ask. You won’t 
suffer; nobody will suffer. Give him another chance. 
It’s only like exercising a first offender’s act. You’ll 
never regret it.” 

“ You don’t understand,” he began helplessly. 

I interrupted him. I wasn’t standing on my dignity. 
I could have been eloquent with the right man before 
me. As it was I was consciously histrionic. “ I’m 
trying to save my daughter,” I said—“ my grandchil¬ 
dren.” I had my tongue in my cheek, and then, again, 
I was simple and sincere. “ The fellow isn’t bad,” 
I said. 

It was as Marmaduke had said. These business peo¬ 
ple have a curious horror of forgery. Perhaps it’s 
partly that it enters largely into melodrama on which 
they are brought up. And, of course, its prevalence 
would make business difficult, though I can’t see that 
it’s morally worse than selling cotton as linen. I didn’t 
stray into these refinements. I let Bradwell have his 
say, and he wound up with the inexorable Jorkins 
again. Briskly, almost joyfully, I said: “ I see. I see. 

If he will relent you are willing—pardon me, then-” 

and I clutched the telephone receiver. I saw Bradwell 



MY DAUGHTER HELEN 


1 3 3 

out of the corner of my eye when I gave Hucklow’s- 
number, and he was a figure of alarmed incredulity. I 
said: “ Will you speak to him or shall I ? ” 

Marmaduke told me afterwards that he enjoyed this 
performance. He said I was a first-rate comedian, and 
I believe I felt that I was doing my best. But that 
fool Bradwell concentrated on the point that I was 
taking a liberty. Of course I was. He was disclaim¬ 
ing vaguely and violently when a voice came at the 
other end of the wire. I asked for Mr. Hucklow and 
mentioned Bradwell’s name. I didn’t attempt to per¬ 
sonate him, but said that he was here. And Hucklow 
came. 

I declared my identity and went on rapidly in spite 
of a choleric exclamation. I thought he was going to 
ring off, and I said: “ Mr. Hucklow, a matter of great 
importance to you has developed. I am here with Mr. 
Bradwell, and he is willing to reconsider that matter if 

you- We will be across directly.” And then I 

rang off, and it occurred to me that I might have made 
a mistake, that he might now simply go out and so 
baffle us. I had wanted to get Bradwell to commit 
himself to something, but now he turned sulky and 
positively declined to accompany us. “ It’s no use, I 
tell you,” he said, and as Marmaduke and I hurried 
out he called after us: “ There’s a warrant out for his 
arrest.” 

So that was it. I took Marmaduke’s arm, and as we 
walked quickly through the streets I said: “You know 
Hucklow’s room, of course. We’ll go right in with¬ 
out asking for him.” He said: “You’re wonderful. 



134 


MY DAUGHTER HELEN 


but I think it’s time to chuck it.” “ Not yet,” I said. 

We burst in upon Hucklow. His hat was on and 
his partner, Birchin, was with him. I think he would 
have been off in another minute. He was angry, blus¬ 
terous, excited, exclamatory. I took the word. “ Mr. 
Hucklow,” I cried, “ I take a grave liberty. Consider 
my position and excuse me. I am here to make any 
reparation possible; to save this young man from the 
consequences of his misdeeds.” I went on volubly, 
watching my man; I brought in the wife and children, 
his own position as a humane and understanding man. 
I had rehearsed all this on Bradwell; I felt beaten, but 
I wasn’t going to give in. I was quite unscrupulous 
and grossly exaggerated Brad well’s concessions, if, in¬ 
deed, he had made any. Birchin brought me up by 
saying: “ It’s no use. The warrant’s out.” 

“ Yes,” I said, “ but it can be withdrawn.” I didn’t 
know anything about that, and “ How ? ” he said. 

With the utmost confidence I asserted that Mr. 
Hucklow had only to communicate with the Chief 
Constable and tell him that another complexion had 
been put on the matter, that there had been a mistake, 
indiscretion and so on. It was not too late. I reiter¬ 
ated arguments. I thought I was making an impres¬ 
sion on the fuming, fretting fellow. And then he 
brought up the matter of the breakfast. 

I believe that cooked Marmaduke’s goose. Mr. 
Hucklow recalled the incident with the most embittered 
resentment. “ No, Mr. Daunt,” he said, “ there is no 
hope for a man who could do that. He went into my 
library, he stole my letter—must have done—and then, 


MY DAUGHTER HELEN 


135 


at my invitation, he took a place at my breakfast table. 
It is a terrible example of duplicity.” 

I pleaded that the man was desperate, that the folly 
of it was childish, and we must treat him as a child. 
I laboured points; I was beaten. He stuck at that 
breakfast and “ A man who could do that.” I tried 
bullying. I said: “ Do you mean to tell me that you 
wish him to go to prison? Are you so brutal, so in¬ 
humane? Mr. Hucklow, I am giving you a chance.” 

Birchin said, “ I think you had better go,” and Huck¬ 
low acquiesced in mutters and grunts. And then I 
played my last card. I tried to bribe them. I have said 
that I was unscrupulous; I tried simply and grossly to 
bribe them. I felt myself passionately on Marma- 
duke’s side. At least he was better than these fellows 
who had no compassion, no principles, nothing but a 
fear of the law and a habit of keeping within it. How 
did I know ? I did know. 

I said: “ You are business men. You are open to ” 
—I hesitated—“ a consideration. I am ready to make 
it worth your while to drop this prosecution, to take 
measures to check it at once.” 

Hucklow gasped and Birchin said: “ What d’ye 
mean ? ” 

I said: “ There is such a thing, I believe, as com¬ 
pounding a felony. Naturally you don’t want to come 
within the law. But surely we can get round that.” 

“ You are getting on very dangerous ground, sir,” 
said Birchin. “ I advise you to go no further.” 

“ Most extraordinary! ” said Hucklow. 

But they waited and “ I will, if you please, name a 


136 


MY DAUGHTER HELEN 


sum/’ I said. “ Of course Mr. Bradwell must be 
brought in. Shall we telephone for him?” 

“ You take my breath away,” said Hucklow. “ Do 
you mean to say-” 

“ I confess to some curiosity about the figure,” said 
Birchin. 

" You would like me to name it ? ” 

“ You must do what you like about that.” 

“ Ten thousand pounds,” I said. And I was think¬ 
ing : Am I a fantastic fool ? This isn’t real. I want to 
do this for her. I’m romantic. I’m not thinking of 
this poor boy now. 

I saw Hucklow and Birchin look at one another. I 
saw astonishment, cupidity, fear, in them. They didn’t 
know what to say. They were silent, ready to pretend 
that it was merely a wicked and preposterous proposal 
that shocked them. They were wondering whether it 
was possible. 

Marmaduke laid his hand on my arm. “ No,” he 
said. 

In a low voice I said to him: “ It’s for Helen.” 

“ Ah! but,” he said, “ it would leave you nothing 
and her nothing.” 

I said: “ We’ll stand together, my boy.” 

“ Not that way,” he said. He turned to the part¬ 
ners who were staring and listening. “ I don’t think 
there’s any more to be done,” he said. “ I’m sorry. 
Good morning.” 

I said to Mr. Hucklow: “ You see, he’s not alto¬ 
gether a bad fellow.” 

They burst out together into exclamations of re- 



MY DAUGHTER HELEN 


137 


pudiation and pious horror. Such a proposal was an 
insult. It merited the gravest reprobation. Allow¬ 
ances might be made for my unfortunate position. 
Yet nothing could justify such a cynical suggestion. 

“ A man who could do that-” began Hucklow, and 

stopped. That other black episode of the breakfast 
had occurred to him. Birchin said: “And how do 
we know that it wasn’t a trick? If we mention this 
it won’t help him much at the trial.” 

“ Then, by God! ” I said, “ I advise you not to 
mention it. If you do-” 

I left it at that and they were uneasy and a little 
alarmed, I think. They hadn’t clear consciences. I 
don’t quite know what I meant. Hucklow said: “ I 
must ask you to leave this office.” 

I made a final, useless effort. “ Gentlemen,” I said, 
“ I ask your pardon. I appeal to your humanity. 
You can save this young man from penal servitude. 
I may be wrong, but it seems to me that for what 
he has done the punishment to him and to all of us 
is too great. You will never regret it if you are mer¬ 
ciful.” 

Hucklow said: “ We have a duty to society.” 

Birchin said: “ Unless you leave at once I telephone 
for the police.” 

Marmaduke said: “ It’ll do as well here as any¬ 
where.” 

But it seemed that they didn’t want that, and Mar¬ 
maduke and I went out together. I saw that the poor 
boy looked up and down the street. I took his arm 
again, and I might have wanted it for my own sup- 




MY DAUGHTER HELEN 


138 

port. I was deeply dejected. He said: “ They would 
have been fools to agree, but they want more capital. 
That money dangled before them must have been tan- 
talizing.” 

We wandered aimlessly, jostled by busy people. “ I 
shall often think of this/’ he said, “ think of your 
goodness. I don’t know why you do it. Oh yes, of 
course! Helen! But I’m best out of the way.” 

“ Helen; yes,” I said. “ But you too. I think I’ve 
felt like Flora Macdonald trying to save Prince Char¬ 
lie. What did she care about law or politics or any¬ 
thing else? One doesn’t stick at a trifle.” 

“ You’ve done everything that’s possible and more.” 

“ I’ve a ridiculous feeling,” I said, “ that I might 
have done better if I’d been a personage. Why wasn’t 
I a personage ? ” 

“ Let’s go back and tell them that you’re really a 
very distinguished man,” said Marmaduke. “ I’ll offer 
to lend them your books.” 

“ And besmirch the pure soul of Hucklow? ” I said. 

We couldn’t keep up this sort of thing. We were 
spent and weary. Marmaduke said: “ Let’s go home 
to Helen.” 

“ Wouldn’t you rather lunch first? ” I said. I was 
thinking that we might not reach the house. He un¬ 
derstood. “ We’ll risk it,” he said. 

We turned sadly homewards. Stopping at a post 
office I said: “ Do you mind if I wire to Randal to 
come? I want Randal.” I felt that I was becoming 
pathetic. He looked at me and “ Yes, yes, of course,” 
he said, and then he added, “ there’s Randal too.” 


MY DAUGHTER HELEN 


139 


So he added to his self-reproaches. Humorously he 
went on: “ It’s very much as though I were dying. 
Hope abandoned. Call ’em round the bed. It’s a 
wonderful invention—the law. Do you remember 
Watts’s picture of Love and Death? Why didn’t he 
call it ‘The Law’?” 

He wasn’t truculent or assertive; a little facetiously 
defensive, perhaps. I had never liked him better. I 
sent my telegram. There was nothing for Randal to 
do, but I felt that we must have him. And we set 
off to walk home to Helen. I resisted the inclination 
to take his arm again. It would seem like holding 
him. Some damned policeman might take his arm 
directly. 


Chapter 15 

5 we approached home we encountered Antony 



^ cruising about in a motor-car which, I suppose, 
he had hired or borrowed. He asked for our news, 
and I told him that it was desperate. And Antony 
said: “ Will he run for it ? ” indicating the car. I 
thought: I’m not the only wild one. Here’s another 
romanticist, another offender against the law. An¬ 
tony said that he could put him down at any out-of- 
the-way place he liked. They might go together for 
a little holiday—change their names, of course. Then 
we could think things over. Appleby! What about 
Appleby? He had heard it was one of the quietest 
places under the sun, and a very pretty place too. 
He seemed to think that Marmaduke would like a 
pretty place. Probably there was a golf course there, 
and they might get some fishing. It would be neces¬ 
sary to act at once. There was the question of clothes 
and things. He talked rapidly and nervously, looking 
about the street. I suppose he was making a fool of 
himself. We were ready to do that for Helen. 

I said: “But if you disappeared together there 
would be two chances of catching you instead of one. 
And then the car-” 

He said he hadn’t thought of that; indeed, he didn’t 
quite see it. As to the car, he made some kind of 
explanation to which I didn’t listen. And then: “ Per- 



MY DAUGHTER HELEN 141 

haps London would be best,” he said. “ Lodgings, 
you know. Easily get you there. Can you smuggle 
out some clothes? I suppose it’s dangerous to take 
them openly ? ” 

Marmaduke said: “ You’re damned good, Antony, 
but it’s best now that I should face the music.” 

“ Are you sure ? ” said Antony. “ We might get 
you out of the country.” 

“ Oh! Let’s get it over,” Marmaduke said. “ I 
should never have a moment’s peace till I was caught. 
I once read about a Sinn Fein fellow on the run. 
And when at last a policeman tapped him on the 
shoulder it was the happiest moment of his life.” 

“ Perhaps you’re right,” said Antony, and after a 
hesitation he said: “ But Helen-” 

“ It’s best for Helen,” Marmaduke said. 

The two looked at one another. They shook hands. 
Then Antony said to me: “ May I call round this 
evening? ” I nodded. He waved his hand and started 
off. 

“ I hope we can get there,” Marmaduke said. “ I 
must see Helen.” He was very anxious now. He 
was concentrated on that idea of seeing her again. I 
suppose he wanted to feel her arms about him; to 
sob out confessions, protestations, perhaps. I don’t 
know. 

We looked suspiciously at guileless citizens as they 
approached us, but it didn’t appear to be anybody’s 
business to stop us. At last we marched up to the 
front door as bold as brass and Marmaduke’s latch¬ 
key let us in. Helen was there at once, shutting a 



MY DAUGHTER HELEN 


142 

door on cheerful clamour. She looked at me and I 
shook my head, and then she smiled at him. Again 
she looked at me: “ You couldn’t do it? ” There was 
no reproach, but for the moment I suffered the bitter¬ 
ness of failure. And then Marmaduke broke into a 
magnificent eulogy of me and of the efforts I had 
made. I tried to stop him, but he had his say. I 
had hold of his arm again, and she came to his other 
side. We drew together, and it was as when with 
your wife and child you make a three-cornered em¬ 
brace. We were almost happy together. Marma¬ 
duke, for the moment, was like his gay old self. His 
laugh rang out when he said: “ The ridiculous old 
man offered them ten thousand.” And she laughed 
too. We all laughed together like maniacs. It might 
have been the best joke in the world, and I suppose 
that, really, it wasn’t a bad one. 

And then they went off together, and I was glad 
that they should have this last intimate talk. I went 
in to the children and I took them on gallantly, lib¬ 
erating the maid. I was with them a long time; I 
grew tired. I felt neglected. And they were neg¬ 
lected too, for I was roused by “ Grandpa isn’t look¬ 
in’.” Why didn’t something happen ? Did time stand 
still? 

It was not till months afterwards when Helen’s 
child was on the way that she told me what I felt 
to be a very strange and moving thing about that morn¬ 
ing. There had been some estrangement between her 
and Marmaduke, and now he was going to prison, 
and it might be for years. All the time he would 


MY DAUGHTER HELEN 143 

be thinking that they had ceased to be truly man 
and wife. I think that she did not love him now 
with any carnal passion, and a woman who has three 
babies doesn’t want a fourth. But in her pity and 
the affection stimulated by this misfortune she had 
offered her body to his embrace. They had been again 
lovers together; she had given him her pledge of 
faithfulness. 

She told me of this, she said, because she had no 
mother. I don’t know that this was logical. I ac¬ 
cepted it; I was honoured to take that mother’s place. 
She wanted us to understand—him and me—that she 
would wait for him, that “ all this ” would make no 
difference. 

There was a time when I might have received this 
confession, this confidence, with resentment and dis¬ 
taste. I could be sentimental about the sacredness of 
her body, I could make fine confusions with ideals 
of chastity and austerity. And now, it seemed to me, 
I was capable of a more spiritual conception. Mar- 
maduke was not quite worthless, but he was un¬ 
worthy ; and yet she couldn’t turn him away. I sup¬ 
pose that women of a powerful egoism can free them¬ 
selves from domestic entanglement; they can take back 
what they have given. Helen was born to help, to 
comfort, to endure. 

I recall that Helen and Marmaduke were very gentle 
with one another, while we waited for the bolt to 
fall. The three of us had lunch decorously, and 
Helen brought up a bottle of wine. When we had 
finished our meal we drank coffee and smoked and 


144 


MY DAUGHTER HELEN 


we waited, waited. The delay was disconcerting, and 
we were all conscious of an unusualness to the point 
of unreality. We had no experience of arrests or 
warrants, and we began to wonder whether they wanted 
him to get away. I suppose we regard these move¬ 
ments initiated by the law as forces of a sinister 
mechanism, or else as manifestations of the sleuth- 
hound. But, indeed, they depend on human agency. 
Doubtless policemen and detectives like to have their 
meals regularly, and to have a pipe after dinner. An 
arrest is all in the day’s work. Anyhow, our friends 
did not turn up till half-past three. 

Two men, who might have been green-grocers or 
publicans, came to the door and rang the bell. There 
was a policeman within call and another, it appeared, 
at the back. The plain-clothes men were invited to 
enter—perhaps this was unnecessary—and they seemed 
pleased to understand that their job would be a simple 
one. They offered to read the warrant, but Marma- 
duke said he wouldn’t trouble them. “ Awful verbi¬ 
age,” he said to me. They were watchful and alert, 
but they seemed to think that handcuffs would not 
be necessary, and they agreed readily to the sugges¬ 
tion of a cab. I think that there were traces of apol¬ 
ogy in their manners, and when one of them caught 
sight of the children I heard him mutter, “Dear! 
Dear!” 

We were all remarkably cool. Helen had packed a 
bag with some clothes, and the men, regarding it 
doubtfully, did not object to his taking it. I offered to 
go to the police-station with them in the cab, but the 


MY DAUGHTER HELEN 


145 


chief of the two said: “ Better not. You see, in that 
case we should have to handcuff him.” I suppose I 
should have been a potential accomplice in a possible 
attempt at escape. 

Marmaduke went to the nursery and solemnly kissed 
his children; he shook my hand; his captors and I 
turned away while he said good-bye to Helen. Then 
they got into an old four-wheeler and it drove away, 
leaving Helen and me staring blankly after it. 


Chapter 16 


XX7T: had plenty of agitation and emotion to come, 
* * but it was, perhaps, in the nature of anti-climax. 
There was a burst of publicity, and we all became 
personages in the public eye. “ Son-in-law of local 
author arrested ” was a newspaper headline, but I 
am afraid I didn’t take the chances of advertisement 
that this suggested. We fenced with condolences 
which were formal, officious, kindly, generous, sacred, 
grieved; rarely, indeed, let it be said, malicious. You 
soon get accustomed to having a forger for your hus¬ 
band or son-in-law; I think the chief difference to 
me, above the surface, was that people paid me a more 
punctilious, a more emphatic, respect. Perhaps they 
avoided me a little more than usual, but I am not quite 
unaccustomed to be avoided. I don’t fit like an old 
glove. 

The proceedings before the magistrate were brief, 
defence was reserved, the prisoner committed for 
trial; there was no question of bail. 

And then came the long time between the committal 
and the trial, and this was difficult for us all. We 
saw Marmaduke when we could and he was bitterly 
dejected, though he did his best to maintain some sem¬ 
blance of fortitude before Helen. She was older day 
by day. It is a paradox and a platitude that a great 
146 


MY DAUGHTER HELEN 


H7 


misfortune may be not hard to bear. Opposed to it, 
almost balancing it, are the reactionary excitements. 
Helen had been greatly moved, even exalted, and her 
pity had refreshed her affection; now, to see her hus¬ 
band in his cell was to realize that her awakened sym¬ 
pathies would be rudely checked, the outpourings of 
her nature frozen. He was taken from her, and pres¬ 
ently he would recede even more deeply into the grim 
oubliette. We talk of accepting the inevitable, but 
this is one of the formulas of stoicism, and our stoi¬ 
cism is a mere fagade. And now they confronted a 
dim wall of years. They concentrated terribly on the 
question: How long? 

Helen sat beside me at the trial, and she listened 
to the tale of her husband's folly and crime with a 
calmness that might have seemed implacable. Randal 
and Antony were not far away, and with Marmaduke 
in the dock there was a queer suggestion of the family 
party. The hard formality of the occasion was tem¬ 
pered by the proximate and the familiar. In the court, 
friends and foes seemed strangely mingled. I could 
have stretched out my hand and touched Hucklow on 
the shoulder. And when counsel chatted with Hucklow 
for a few minutes it reminded me of Mr. Pickwick's 
indignation when Sergeant Snubbin saluted Sergeant 
Buzfuz. I had so rarely been in a Court of Justice 
that most of my analogies were drawn from fiction. 

Counsel had advised, on technical grounds that we 
didn't quite appreciate, a plea of not guilty, but the 
facts were not in dispute, and no witness was called 
for Marmaduke in reference to them. His counsel 


148 MY DAUGHTER HELEN 

made what he could of his readiness to recall the 
step, of the fact that he was actually attempting con¬ 
fession and restitution before the warrant against him 
was executed. I was called to make the point that no¬ 
body would suffer, nobody would be out of pocket 
by what he had done. But forgery, in the eye of 
the law, is a terrible crime. It menaces the structure 
of society. 

And poor Marmaduke didn’t help himself. He 
had concentrated on the idea of defining his position 
and giving, as he put it, “ one in the eye ” to the hated 
system that had enslaved him. In spite of cautions 
and appeals from his counsel he availed himself of 
the opportunity to address the court before the case 
went to the jury. And his case amounted to this— 
that all the business activities of Manchester, so far 
as he knew them, were directed simply to the end of 
personal enrichment; that altruism, pity, charity, good 
citizenship had no share in them. The only limitation 
to rapacity was the law, and this had no correspondence 
with moral law. Relax your law and the business man 
takes advantage; tighten it and he resentfully obeys. 
He does not steal and forge, because it would be bad 
policy to do so. He is afraid, and the difference be¬ 
tween him and the criminal—and so on. 

Of course he was pulled up by the judge, who 
asked him to confine his remarks to the particular 
case, and declined to listen to any exposition of gen¬ 
eral principles. So poor Marmaduke’s speech was 
fragmentary, and at one point the judge asked him 
if he meant that on regaining his freedom he would 


MY DAUGHTER HELEN 


149 


continue the course that had brought him to the dock. 
Marmaduke was a little alarmed at this, and inti¬ 
mated that he had learnt his lesson; but he was doing 
himself no good, and his counsel was manifestly im¬ 
patient. Brought back to realities, he admitted hand¬ 
somely that he had done wrong. He made a queerly 
worded apology to society. He had been contami¬ 
nated, it appeared, by contact with this foul thing 
called business. Asked again to confine himself to 
the case, he said he could not admit that he was on 
a lower moral plane than his prosecutors. “ I have 
been accused of ingratitude,” he said, “but that is a 
greater crime than any I have committed.” Pointing 
at Hucklow, he said: “ This is merely a malignant old 
man. I believe he would have let me off but for that 
breakfast.” There was a burst of laughter, but Huck¬ 
low had stressed this matter, and counsel had dwelt 
on it as an indication of facility in crime. But Mar- 
maduke’s speech wasn’t a success, and he seemed to 
feel that. It was not quite frivolous, but it sounded 
so. At last he turned toward us and shook his head 
slightly. He bowed to the judge, and stood back. 

It was a relief. Helen and I sat there, feeling and 
thinking in unison. He had had a touch or two of 
his old wit, but he had been strained, irrelevant, nerv¬ 
ously agitated. She had watched him without irri¬ 
tation or rancour. Grief and the consternation of the 
occasion did not confuse her steady brain nor chill 
her generous heart. I followed her feelings, her 
thoughts; I saw Marmaduke through her pitiful eyes. 

And now the question in our minds was, three years 


150 MY DAUGHTER HELEN 

or five, and my hand tightened on Helen’s when we 
knew that it was five. Marmaduke looked at Helen, 
with a brave smile. He had the gratification of main¬ 
taining his dignity. We overheard his counsel say 
to his solicitor with bitterness: “ Two years extra for 
that speech,” and the solicitor nodded and shrugged. 
I don’t know. Are judges swayed like that? 

The judge stretched himself and looked at his watch. 
Another batch of jurymen was filing in. There was 
some shuffling of counsel and their papers. Marma¬ 
duke was already in the past. Helen went home to 
her children. And then for a time I found myself 
outside, beset with conjectures, alone, 


Chapter 17 


he wisdom of the ages has determined that when 



*■» the spirit is oppressed it is well the body should 
be active. Helen had a good deal to do, and to tend 
her children gave a sufficiency of work. It is only 
sentimentalists who believe that a mother’s commerce 
with her children is pure joy, and perhaps the small 
problems and even the small irritations were good for 
her. And now when it was decided that they should 
come and. live with me at Darley all manner of deci¬ 
sions and actions pressed upon her. The house must 
be, if possible, sub-let; some of the furniture sold and 
some stored; preparations, rearrangements were neces¬ 
sary at the new home. It doesn’t make much difference 
to the small change of life that your husband is in 
jail; it’s his absence that matters. Helen and I worked 
together, and she didn’t spare herself. We were con¬ 
tinually consulting and deciding. It wasn’t a happy 
time for me; in this ebb of disaster I was so often try¬ 
ing and failing to penetrate to her thoughts. 

She had become inscrutable again, and I tasted the 
irony of it. For here was I, dubbed by the easy 
phrasemongers as “ analytical,” and with all my sym¬ 
pathy, with all my penetration, I could only surmise 
vaguely. I dare say she was simple enough. She was 
not of the kind that would display emotion, explore 


152 


MY DAUGHTER HELEN 


the situation. The prolonged debauch of egoism was 
not in her line. 

I felt sometimes that it would have been far better 
and simpler if Marmaduke had died. His work in 
the world seemed over, and it hadn’t been much, unless 
we count the getting of his children. He would be 
young still when he came out of jail, but a future 
for him was hardly conceivable. What would he do ? 
I had a vision of him—it was a kind of low-down 
inspiration—as handy man about the garden. I could 
imagine his sinking gently into such a job. Helen’s 
husband! And we should play up to him and take 
him at his full value and something over. To him¬ 
self he would be justified, no doubt, by his wit and 
his mental activities generally. It is only the abashed 
that fail. 

Helen was loyal, but what was it, what was it pre¬ 
cisely, I asked myself, that she was loyal to? Per¬ 
haps she had not deserved a marriage of exalted sym¬ 
pathies; perhaps she couldn’t have sustained her part 
in that. She was made to be a helpmate, and in this, 
it seemed, she had failed; it might not be her fault, but 
she had failed. Or had she? Perhaps the trial was 
to come. She was one of the women who persist in 
a simple conception of duty, and through the years 
and in spite of severance she would wait. She was 
not one to harry a husband into the straight and nar¬ 
row way; she might not even save him from sloth and 
selfishness. Now Marmaduke must recede in her 
thoughts, until, years hence, his resurrection loomed 


MY DAUGHTER HELEN 


153 


before her. Then he would take his place again. She 
wasn’t an egoist; she wasn’t a free woman. 

It was strange for her to take up the Darley life 
after a long interval closed in disaster. The personnel 
of the place had not changed greatly, and she was 
received by her friends with a chastened eagerness. 
There was no question of the cold shoulder; the sins 
of the husband were not to be visited on the wife. 
You could believe that the ladies had adopted a policy, 
for they “ called ” almost in a body, and they exercised 
miracles of tact. Helen did not deny herself to them, 
but generally she did not return the calls. 

She would sometimes talk to the more intimate 
of these old friends about Marmaduke. I have heard 
her and have reflected in some humility that such con¬ 
fidences had not been common between her and me. 
Perhaps she believed that all was understood between 
us; perhaps she gave to these ladies a mere case. In 
a situation such as hers you must, sooner or later, 
formulate a case. The flux of events must be con¬ 
trolled, the statement must be plausible. Marmaduke’s 
figure could never be made heroic, but it could be 
shorn of unbecoming trappings. And I think it was 
fine and loyal of her to insist on him, on his reality, 
on a future that contained him; she rejected the alter¬ 
native of a stony silence. She was not unhappy, for 
she had her children, she had household affairs to 
control, and my comforts and interests to consider. 
You may expend a noble energy in making frocks for 
your baby. 


154 


MY DAUGHTER HELEN 


Yes, we were more than tolerated; it might have 
been a virtue or an engaging trait to have a forger in 
the family. Even our good Broomhead, the conspicu¬ 
ous, the immaculate Broomhead, of whom we used 
to make such fun, had come to me in the early days 
of our trouble to ask if there was anything he could 
do. I didn’t know that there was, but he pressed 
the point. “ Anything! ” he cried, “ anything! ” And 
then he added the remarkable qualification: “ That is 
to say, anything in reason.” 

How Helen and I laughed over that! I think it 
was our first unbridled laugh together since disaster 
had overtaken us. And Broomhead contributed even 
more to our gaiety when he was nominated by one 
of our local wags as chairman of the Lecture Commit¬ 
tee. For it was determined that Darley should have 
its course of lectures, and as a literary man I was 
called in to assist. Broomhead’s strong point was that 
the lecturers must wear evening dress ; there had once 
been lectures in Darley without this amenity. He was 
capable of calling it faultless evening dress or even The 
Evening Dress of an English Gentleman. The war 
has interfered with us in many ways, but in none more 
unfortunately than in relaxing, slurring over, “ indeed, 
I may say, flouting ” those civilizing observances which 
distinguish us from the beasts and the lower-middle 
class. We had been reprehensively lax, and now 
Broomhead cowed us into a positive regulation. 

I was commissioned to induce my old friend Ley- 
gate to give one of the lectures. It certainly wasn’t 
worth his while for the small fee we could offer, but 


MY DAUGHTER HELEN 


155 


I wanted to see him again and he was ready enough 
to come. Ley gate is not one of those whom pros¬ 
perity has spoiled, and, indeed, I don’t think it does 
often spoil people of the right sort. He admitted to 
me that his lecture would not be quite the first time 
on any stage, but of course that didn’t matter to us. 
The subject offered and accepted was Ballads, and 
Broomhead approved highly of this. He determined 
to organize what he called musical illustrations and, 
so to say, make a night of it. Leygate was a learned 
enthusiast in the Border Ballads, and to some of us 
his lecture was extraordinarily interesting. But I shall 
never forget his aspect of bewilderment when Broom- 
head, his chairman, asked him kindly to resume his 
seat for a few minutes, and a lady, with her accom¬ 
panist, tripped up to the piano. Then she struck up 
something to the effect that “ They say I may marry 
the laird if I will,” and the piano jingled accordingly; 
I believe that it is a drawing-room song of the ’eighties 
or thereabouts, for Broomhead had taken some trou¬ 
ble to secure “ old ” ballads. I was in the front row, 
and Leygate, whose “ What’s this? ” had been unheard 
or disregarded, looked down upon me over his spec¬ 
tacles in startled inquiry. I think my life was en¬ 
dangered by the strangulation of laughter, and I felt 
Helen shaking on the bench beside me. 

Presently Leygate was permitted to resume, but his 
lecture was punctuated from time to time by these 
so-called ballads. He is a humorist and when he had 
got the hang of the thing he took it all in good part; 
but it went far towards making nonsense of the lec- 


MY DAUGHTER HELEN 


156 

ture when an impassioned quotation from “ The Twa 
Corbies ” or “ The Wife of Usher’s Well ” was fol¬ 
lowed by some lisping irrelevance. 

We had our laugh out when Leygate came home 
with us. He told us that Broomhead had assured 
him they all felt he had done his best, and I think 
he was rejoicing in an addition to his repertory of 
good stories. For he was a great repository of these, 
and he liked good gossip almost as well. We sat late 
over the fire that night as he talked, while I listened, 
of the London set he knew and their doings and mis¬ 
doings. I like gossip, though I don’t like it all de¬ 
traction or of failure and disaster. And, provincial 
that I am, I want the people I admire to lead decent 
lives. Perhaps I mean humdrum, circumscribed lives, 
and my ideals are not good enough for them; they 
aspire to something nobly exalted above conventional 
behaviour. I rebelled at this tale of faithlessness, of 
divorce, of the restlessness that is ostensibly a search 
for the ideal. The women flit from husband to lover; 
they seek, it may be, a deeper affinity. But the men 
have more chances, for they don’t grow old as fast. 

“ The gross fact is,” I said, “ that the wife has 
grown plain or the husband dull.” 

“ And mustn’t such facts be reckoned with ? ” said 
Leygate. 

I went on another tack. “ I am here,” I said, “ in 
a rather curious relation to some of the people about 
me. I’m a sort of literary man, and I suppose that 
my sympathies, are, roughly, yours. That means that 
I’m considered a bit queer. Some of my neighbours 


MY DAUGHTER HELEN 


157 


feel that I’m not quite their sort. They’re afraid that 
I may put them in a book—or they’re afraid I won’t. 
Many of them are a little shy or guilty with me, be¬ 
cause they haven’t read my books or can’t make any¬ 
thing of ’em. And yet, though I’m partly in your 
camp, I’m with them too. I’ve a forger for a son- 
in-law, but that’s irrelevant; they’re very much inter¬ 
ested in the fact, and they accept it magnanimously. 
Yes, Leygate, magnanimously, for forgery here, in a 
commercial community, isn’t just an interesting case for 
psycho-analysis. Yes, I’m a provincial, and I like 
the provincial virtues. We stick to husbands or wives 
here. Faithfulness is very much a matter of course. 
If our lives are not sensitive and brilliant together 
we do become, deeply and pathetically, friends. 
You’ll say we’re not alive; that we’re .sunk in a puri¬ 
tanical stupor.” 

“ I don’t know that I should say that,” said Ley- 
gate. 

“ Is the state of things that you describe satisfactory 
to you ? ” 

“ Perhaps I’ve given you an exaggerated notion of 
it,” he said. “ I’ve been trying to make your flesh 
creep, I suppose. There are yet a few happy couples. 
And, mind you,” he went on, “ these people of whom 
we speak are not negligible. They’re not the lewd 
froth-” 

“ I know,” I interrupted eagerly. a That is the 
point. They’re artists and poets whom the most strait¬ 
laced of us must respect. They have ideals of the 
intercourse of men and women. They’ve spiritual 



MY DAUGHTER HELEN 


158 

needs and they don’t stand still. But they’re cruel. 
I tell you they’re cruel. They can leave their mates 
to misery. Their comradeships are shallow. For the 
sake of that spiritual need they’ll tear up by the roots. 
But there are no roots.” 

Ley gate said: “ There are cases in which it is im¬ 
possible to go on. And, without disrespect to your 
friends, I’d say that there are societies of sharper- 
edged, more sensitive people than the ladies and gen¬ 
tlemen who sang these pretty songs to-night. There’s 
a dull kind of faithfulness that doesn’t matter much.” 

“ But it’s human to be faithful,” I said. “ It rep¬ 
resents deep needs.” 

“ If you’re going to make divorce harder-■” he 

began. 

But I interrupted again. I hardly gave the poor 
man a chance. “ I don’t want it harder,” I said. “ I’d 
have it easier.” 

“ But, my dear fellow, how-” 

“ I want divorce easier, and less divorce,” I said. 

“ You want both the cake and the ha’penny,” said 
he. 

But I held to that. I wouldn’t have people con¬ 
demned to one another against their wills. I wanted 
the freedom of the spirit, and I wasn’t without faith 
in the spirit. 

“ You want to have a fashion in faithfulness,” he 
said sarcastically. “ Don’t think I want the world 
like a hen-run. But you mustn’t lay on the spirit a 
burden greater than it can bear.” 

And then, at last, we came to Helen, who had been 



MY DAUGHTER HELEN 


i59 


in my thoughts all the time. I told him I had once 
been with her to see “ A Doll’s House,” and she had 
been mightily excited, and thought it fine and illumi¬ 
nating. And then, as we came home in the train she 
frowned in meditation, and at last she said, “ Daddy, 
if it had been me I suppose I should have come creep¬ 
ing back again. How could she be herself without 
those children ? ” 

“ I admire your daughter, Daunt,” said Leygate. 

“ I suppose she would be a mere barbarian to your 
London lot ? ” 

“ Oh, no, no, no! ” he said. “ We like various kinds. 
And perhaps we should be a bit more liberal than 
you are here to that poor devil, your son-in-law.” 

“ Would wives stick to such-like husbands with 
you ? ” I said. 

“ Really, Daunt, we’re talking as though we were 
in different worlds. Stick to—well, a forger might 
have more chance than a bore.” He got up to go 
to bed. He reflected, eyeing me. “ You’re not a man 
to be offended,” he said. “ I’m curious. I’m inter¬ 
ested. That son-in-law of yours now. For aught I 
know he may be a fine fellow astray, a man worth 
redeeming. But if he’s a mere wastrel, a criminal 
out of jail, do you mean to tell me that you want her 
to stick to him? You want her to be faithful? Faith¬ 
ful to what? If that other fellow—what’s his name? ” 

“ Antony Derwent.” 

“If Derwent came and she said Yes and she and 
her babes went off with him to a happy life—let’s say 
in Canada—would you stand in the way? ” 


i6o MY DAUGHTER HELEN 

“ Not for a moment,” I said. 

“ But your ideals would be shattered,” he said. 
“ You’d think her unfaithful?” 

I laughed at that. I knew something of the faith¬ 
fulness that was not at the mercy of waning sex. 
“ The question doesn’t arise,” I said. 

And Leygate grumbled on about Antony and the 
type of the faithful dog. “ Of course,” he said, “ if 
your young forger is amusing and has decent habits 

and won’t do it again-” and then he recalled that 

in the war it was reckoned poor form to court an 
absent soldier’s wife, “ and I’m not sure,” he said, 
“ that it isn’t as bad when the man’s in prison.” 

We sank back on platitudes. We agreed that there 
are types and types, that all kinds go to the making 
of a world. 

I led him to a picture in my room. It was a draw¬ 
ing of night in Glasgow and the artist had given it 
a fanciful title: “ The Sleep of the Provinces.” 

“What do you read into it, then?” he said. 

And I couldn’t tell him explicitly. “ The man had 
had a passion for Glasgow ” (“ Is it possible? ” inter¬ 
jected Leygate), “ his native town ” (“ Ah! ” he said), 
“ and now from London he looked back and it was 
not with scorn. If he renounced it was wistfully.” 

“ Ah! ” said Leygate again and then, as it seemed 
irrelevantly: “A fine creature; a fine creature.” 


Chapter 18 


T t is in intimacies that we realize our loneliness; 
**■ we look for more and more in our lover, and when 
we are content the vision fades. Always I hankered 
after something more from Helen and yet I am the 
good father, the dear father. And the good grand¬ 
father too, with everything nice and normal. Helen 
and I became like old friends. I was helpful and 
she consulted me constantly about the children. Yet 
I’ve seen in her the wish for more—the wistful, baffled 
look of those who seek and never find. I can dip 
again into that romantic, passionate time when her 
womanhood dawned on me, for it is fresh in my 
memory and I shall never lose it. Yes, she is con¬ 
scious of something that has gone, something that 
she has never had. The poor girl searches her heart 
and asks herself where she has failed. I reassure her 
as well as I can, for I dread the shadow of reproach 
between us. I was touched—nay, I was greatly moved 
—by a pathetic attempt to catch up with me. She 
began to read my books, to puzzle over them; she 
had joyful moments of agreement and appreciation; 
it seemed that we did draw closer. And I found my¬ 
self considering her as I wrote and even making audi¬ 
ence of her. Perhaps it will “ humanize ” me, as the 
critics might say; perhaps she will bring me success. 
It matters little. One tries and tries again for a place 
in the sun; and then, in acquiescence, seeks the shade. 

161 


i6a MY DAUGHTER HELEN 

In acquiescence, but perhaps with a certain grandiosity 
of gesture. 

Helen and I tried not to humbug one another with 
sham agreements, for we had much in common. We 
marketed, we gardened, we lived a simple life together, 
we sought each other’s company. Marmaduke was 
very much in our thoughts and I built some of my 
castles in Spain about him. I imagined him amongst 
us again and treated with respect. We should im¬ 
pose upon him a kind of responsibility. Randal and 
Antony would be his familiar friends. Did it mean 
that we should fool him to the top of his bent? I 
don’t think so. If there was no other work for him 
he would have to clean the boots. I could imagine his 
taking to it with his little, humorous snigger. Helen 
would stand over him benignantly. 

I suppose I am, after all, a sentimentalist. I am 
filled with admiration for the younger generation. 
They come athwart my prejudices sometimes, but 
Helen, Randal, Antony, seem so generous, so good. 
And Marmaduke becomes in my mind, sometimes, an 
heroic figure. He must suffer; I acquiesce in that. 
More than any of us he must suffer and endure. 
Perhaps to be a hero you must volunteer, but there are 
times when volition seems very little in this hard 
world. I think of Marmaduke and I could thank 
God for Helen and for all steadfast, merciful 
women. 

On a quiet spring night I sat waiting for her child 
to be born. Once again I heard those harrowing cries 
of the woman in labour, feeling myself to be helpless, 
useless. I lost my sense of the still house, the reassur- 


MY DAUGHTER HELEN 


163 

ing professionals; my emotions were deeply stirred. 
And then, once more, I heard that strange, querulous 
cry of a child born to joy or sorrow, and I knew that 
soon Helen would be happy. And constantly I was 
feeling glad that I had been a good father. 

I talked to the tired doctor and learnt that the 
newcomer was a boy, making two of each kind in the 
family, and then we had a late, or early, cup of tea 
together. I was permitted to take a look at Helen 
sleeping quietly, and it should have calmed me, but I 
came down trembling and quivering; I am growing 
old. I was too much excited to go to bed, and so 
I took down Conrad’s Youth, feeling that there was 
something in it that I wanted. And through the splen¬ 
did romance of it I did penetrate to the austere con¬ 
ception that youth is for “ the endeavour, the test, 
the trial of life.” Helen’s youth was going, and that 
seemed lamentable, but she had before her the years 
of strong, patient womanhood. She could not hoard 
her youth; she must spend it freely. 

Old habits, old attitudes, persisted, and I must al¬ 
ways feel toward her, protective. And, indeed, I am 
impelled to make the final, arrogant claim that Helen 
lives in me. No one has seen her with my eyes; no 
one has given her, as I have, an ideal, passionate love. 
It has been an unequal relation; she has been puzzled, 
inarticulate. In the fullness of her youth and life, 
in her motherhood, she is greater than I, but she can¬ 
not match me in devotion. She has hard and difficult 
days before her, and I would always be there to help 
and shield. It cannot be. 

“ O God, I shall die first—I shall die first! ” 













Marmaduke 


© Cl A800706 


Chapter I 


'1X7e Daunts were in a singular position. We lived 
* * comfortably enough in our villa at Darley with 
its half-acre garden, and if you must live near Man¬ 
chester and like an environment of hills Darley is a 
good choice. Our household consisted of my daughter 
Helen, my son Randal, Helen’s four children, our two 
maids and myself. There was a gap in it, and this 
made the singularity of the position; for Marmaduke 
Abney, my son-in-law, was in prison fulfilling his sen¬ 
tence of five years’ penal servitude for forgery. I 
suppose there must be many families with a member 
absent on some such business, but few of them live 
in red-brick villas in good suburbs. Our friends and 
neighbours had been considerably taken aback by the 
catastrophe, but when Helen and her children re¬ 
turned to my roof they had been very kind; they had 
competed with one another in implying that “ it made 
no difference.” I was conscious sometimes of being 
pointed out to people: “ You see that man? He’s got 
a son-in-law who’s doing five years.” And I would 
straighten my back and try to look calm and dignified. 
I was treated with great respect, but I was a kind 
of inexplicable literary man; I never went to church 
unless at a funeral, and my books wouldn’t make 
good Sunday-school prizes. We are liberal nowadays, 
167 


MARMADUKE 


168 

any of us might have an unsatisfactory son-in-law, and 
as to the poor children, we mustn’t push the idea of 
heredity too far. Of course there had always been 
something just a little bit queer about the Daunts. 

We had settled down to a happy, almost a humdrum 
life together. Randal’s college days were honourably 
over, and he was with a Manchester barrister devil¬ 
ling, and hankering a little after journalism; Helen 
was occupied with her children. She had few friend¬ 
ships, or didn’t pursue them, and we had lost the 
custom of inviting people. My old devotion to Helen, 
one of the passions of my life, had sobered, it might 
seem, to friendship and affection. Potentially it was 
more than that, but you must beware of forcing the 
note of old passions; you may be staunch to a person, 
hardly to a passion. I grow old, and I would not be 
dull and blunt. The old man may make his claim 
for serenity, tenderness, delicacy; he has the doubtful 
asset of experience; he may aspire to the bird’s-eye 
view. 

Helen waited calmly, tending her children. We all 
waited; every one is waiting for indefinite events, but 
a particular one was always in our minds. Even the 
children knew that some day Daddy was to come home 
and there would be great rejoicings. Helen did not 
say, “ When our ship comes in,” but “ when Daddy 
comes home.” Some day there must be explanations, 
and I could believe that, when the time came, Helen 
would not shrink from these, though she might give 
a bowdlerized, even a roseate version of Marmaduke’s 
offence. There would be ultimate revelation, of course. 


MARMADUKE 


169 

The children were taught to pray for him, for that 
mysterious absent Daddy whose name was always asso¬ 
ciated with coming joys. They couldn’t realize much 
about him, for Randy, the eldest, was only eight, but 
they had had some little contact with other children’s 
Daddies and so, perhaps, might devise vague images 
of him. And they had their game of Daddy Coming 
Home. Helen and I, hand in hand, watched them 
playing it. Randy assumed the principal part and it 
was for him to bring home gorgeous presents to his 
children. Somehow they managed to associate this 
with the presents brought by the Wise Men of the 
East to another child; the drama was of unsettled 
form. Presents, however, were the essential part of 
it, and long before Marmaduke came home Helen had 
made sufficient preparation against disappointment. 

Helen had her pieties, in loyal succession to her 
mother, who had been her early passion, and on Sun¬ 
days and occasions she would herd such of her chil¬ 
dren as were old enough to the children’s service. I 
acquiesce in all this, as in the old days I acquiesced 
in Helen’s confirmation, which was to her, I surmised, 
largely a matter of a new frock. I don’t think my 
agnosticism or scepticism, or whatever it is, lost me 
much of her sympathy. And now the children’s ver¬ 
sion of Christianity has become mild and liberal, I 
suppose; it is not, as it was in my day, gingered up 
with hell fire. Whatever may be the faults of this 
generation, it has had some concern for the happiness 
of children. Of course Helen gave me a free hand; 
she had no reserves, no suspicions; I told the young- 


170 


MARMADUKE 


sters tales, I joined in their games, I liked my role 
of the genial grandfather. But one day Randy said: 
“What will you do when Daddy comes home? ,, It 
indicated a ruthless dismissal. 


Chapter 2 


he time approached; at last, at last it was at 



hand. Helen appeared calm, but I have a 
father’s eyes, a lover’s eyes. Calmness is not a state, 
it is a qualification; you can’t be merely calm. She 
was filled with hopes, misgivings, with impulses and 
shrinkings. She said little, for she is a reticent person, 
occasionally blurting out things from the depths. We 
rarely talked of this intimate matter, yet I suggested 
to her that, though her case might seem to her a 
singular one, women have been separated from their 
husbands before. I feared she was nursing that sin¬ 
gularity of what in her schoolgirl days she called 
“ rotten luck.” I invited her to an extended range 
of sympathies, sententiously improving the occasion. 
“ Many poor women,” I said, “ are suffering as you 
suffer.” “ But I don’t know them,” she said, and I 
felt that class is a sad limitation. 

Our neighbours wanted to be considerate, but they 
became shy of approach; I daresay we were difficult. 
It is difficult to segregate yourself from the world, 
to claim peculiar standards. Spiritual values cannot 
be estimated in terms of law, but a forger’s a forger. 
Marmaduke doubtless had more charm than most 
forgers, but charm is a virtue that tarnishes. 

The idea of Marmaduke’s return was exciting, and 
yet I could regret that our quiet days were coming 


MARMADUKE 


172 

to an end. He didn't form part of my scheme of 
life, he couldn’t conceivably fit into our present life. 
Helen had been, as you say, all the world to me and 
then for a short space Marmaduke had been the tre¬ 
mendous, the harassing preoccupation. I wanted 
Marmaduke and I dreaded him. Helen had been the 
centre, the pivot, the ideal, the reality; and during 
these quiet years we had been happy together. Yes, 
I grow old, I begin to idealize security, serenity. I 
can but love with what I am. 

The time narrowed to weeks, to days. Incredibly 
the day came. There had been preparations, the gar¬ 
nishing of a chamber. It was not Helen’s. Was it 
her husband who would return to her or a stranger? 
She had four children—I think she dreaded, as any 
woman might, to bear more. The future was difficult. 
She had been a faithful wife. What did he expect? 

I think she was deeply disconcerted by this return. 
It is impossible, after such an interval, to take up 
things where they were. And, indeed, the relations of 
husband and wife had been out of gear long before. 
She had forgiven, she had condoned, but the years 
had intervened. We were all in doubt; we didn’t 
know what Marmaduke would be like and our own 
feelings were tentative, unexplored. The children were 
in high excitement, and that brought misgivings. 
What did they expect? Would they be disappointed? 
Marmaduke had been an erratic father and couldn’t 
be depended upon for sentimentalism—hardly for geni¬ 
ality. 

It was arranged that Helen and Randal should go 


MARMADUKE 


173 


to the prison to meet him and bring him home. Ran¬ 
dal told me afterwards that they were received by the 
Governor, who was very nice to them. He seemed to 
know all about them, but Randal thought he was a 
little startled by Helen; she wasn’t a usual type to 
stand waiting by the jail gate. Randal found some¬ 
thing of “ thwarted gallantry ” in his attitude, but 
benevolence prevailed. He shook hands with Mar- 
maduke at parting and Marmaduke made a neat little 
speech of thanks for consideration. Randal confessed 
that he couldn’t determine the proportions of sincerity 
and tongue in cheek. 

Marmaduke was quiet, gentle, and pale, like a flower 
deprived of sun. He took Helen’s hand and hesitated, 
but she threw her arms round him. Randal and the 
Governor chatted for a while apart. Randal said that 
Marmaduke seemed strangely childlike and on the rail¬ 
way journey he looked out of the window in ecstasy. 
Once he said: “ What’s the point in keeping me from 
this ? ” Randal didn’t feel like discussing the penal 
system. I wanted him to say something more about 
Helen, but I found it difficult to frame a question. 
I didn’t like to say: “ How did they get on together? ” 
though that is what I meant when I said “ Helen ? ” 
—Randal understood, though. “ She stuck close to 
him,” he said; “ she might have been forcing herself 
upon him.” To my implied interrogation he said: 
“ Oh! I don’t know, I don’t know. It’s too soon to 
say anything yet. We’re all in a bit of a dither.” 


Chapter 3 


hey arrived by one of the crowded evening trains 



A and Randy and I went to meet it. The boy 
thought he would know his father, but he wasn’t sure, 
and was anxious about it. Like the riddle-guessers 
who desire a hint, he asked what kind of a hat his 
father would wear. I couldn’t tell him, and began 
to wonder whether he would wear the suit in which 
he had been arrested. I recalled seeing some dis¬ 
charged prisoners with horribly creased and rumpled 
clothes. I didn’t know that Helen had thought of 
this and that they took with them a decent overcoat 
and a soft hat. 

The people poured out of the train and presently 
we saw him advancing between Helen and Randal. 
I think the news that he was coming had leaked out, 
and I was conscious of discreet movements, side- 
glances, guarded inspection. Little Randy started to 
run, and hesitated shyly. Before we got to them one 
man intercepted Marmaduke and shook hands with 
him. It touched my emotions and yet I resented it; 
I think I had a childish desire to greet him first. 
And thinking of it afterwards I couldn’t make up my 
mind whether it was fussy of Burton or humane. 

Randy got up to them and stopped in front of his 
father. Marmaduke stared at him, and it was not 
till Helen said something to him that he gave rather 


MARMADUKE 


175 


a perfunctory tap to the boy’s head. I imagine he was 
finding things very difficult and that he stiffened in 
self-defence. I got him by the arm and we fell be¬ 
hind. We were the last group to leave the station. 

That paleness was very striking, and he looked older. 
He was strange to me, but he was coming back; 
speech and gesture were building him up again. I said 
something about this and he replied: “ Yes, I’ve only 
my old bag of tricks.” 

Randy was asking whether old Sam, the out-porter, 
would bring up the luggage. Marmaduke rapped out: 
“ What luggage ? ” 

“ Yours,” said Randy. 

“ I’ve no luggage,” said Marmaduke; “ people don’t 
have any when they drop from the sky.” 

“ I thought you came by the train.” 

“ Yes, but before that I had dropped from the sky.” 

“ It’s unusual,” said Randy judicially. 

We remembered now that Randy was in the way, 
as the hamper of presents for the children was con¬ 
cealed in bushes near the garden gate. So he was 
hustled into the house and the position was explained 
to Marmaduke. He was now to make his formal 
entry armed with these presents for the children; 
presents from that dim country whence he came. I 
had a moment’s anxiety. He took two or three quick 
paces ahead of us, his hands clenching, his body stiffen¬ 
ing. It might have been that he was going to be 
impracticable, morose. We didn’t know what he would 
do; hardly what he was like. Helen took his arm re¬ 
assuringly and yet doubtfully. The fellow was so sen- 


MARMADUKE 


176 

sitive and we feared to be emphatic; we were abashed 
before him. It was difficult to be natural. Had we 
made a mistake in thrusting these presents upon him, 
in playing this note for him? But he thanked us. 
“Awfully kind and thoughtful,” he said, and it was 
a relief. He took the hamper from us and he played 
up wonderfully. Soon he had the children shouting 
about him, showing and flourishing their presents. It 
was a grand realization for them of the doubtfully 
expected. Randy alone, though joining loyally in dem¬ 
onstration, appeared a little sceptical and wanted to 
know whether old Sam had brought the presents. 
Then he said: “ Where’ve you been, Daddy?” 

It stopped the fun. The children were listening, we 
were waiting; we left Marmaduke to it; expecting 
some variant of the descent from the sky. He and 
Randy gazed at one another but he didn’t hesitate 
long. He said, “ I’ve been in prison.” 

Helen started and would have spoken, but I touched 
her hand. 

Randy’s eyes were goggling. He said: “ But wicked 
people go to prison.” 

“ I was wicked,” said Marmaduke, “ but I’m not, 
now.” 

Randy said: “ Oh, you’re good now ? ” 

“ Daddy’s good,” said Mary. 

“ He’s very good,” said Helen. 

“ As good as you ? ” asked Mary. 

“ Yes, quite.” 

“ No, not as good as your mother,” said Marma¬ 
duke. 


MARMADUKE 


177 


“As good as granfer?” said Randy. 

Randal intervened: “ About as good as me.” 

“ That’s very good,” said Mary politely. 

“ Is prison nice ? ” asked Randy. 

“ Very unnice,” said Marmaduke. 

“ Rotten luck! ” said Randy. 

Marmaduke turned to us. “ I shall get some fun 
out of this chap,” he said. 

Then Helen put it to them that Daddy didn’t like 
to talk about it and that the subject was closed. The 
children filed out looking solemn. 

Randal clapped Marmaduke on the back: “ Well 
done!” 

“ You can’t do impossible things well,” said Mar¬ 
maduke gloomily. 

And then he went on: “ It’s curious to come back 
to action. Now I’ve got to do things, to decide things. 
I’ve thought about this day and what I should do 
scores of times, hundreds of times. You want some¬ 
thing to think about when you are trying to sleep at 
night. I’ve concocted brilliant speeches, I’ve said beau¬ 
tiful things to Helen and the children. Sometimes I 
made myself cry—they were so beautiful. I’m easily 
affected. One forgets all this when the time comes; 
one does middling things. It’s different, you’re all 
different from what I thought. Have I changed 
much?” 

He stood squarely before us and we considered 
him. He was rather a small man, holding himself 
with some alertness. On a day of our early acquaint¬ 
ance with him there had been some discussion as to 


MARMADUKE 


178 

whether he should be described as peculiar or dis¬ 
tinguished. His features were not striking, but nearer 
to sharp than to blunt, his eyes bright and rather 
restless. One had thought of him as a lively man 
relapsing to melancholy; now his melancholy seemed 
more constant, though we were often to see him light 
< up. Something had passed over his face, a partial 
erasure; colour had been withdrawn. 

Helen and Randal assured him that he had changed 
very little. He waited for me to speak. 

“ You are slipping back into yourself,” I said. 
“ The air, the sun, will put you right.” 

“ The prison greyness! ” he said. “ It’s a grey place. 
Greyness is the tragic thing, not black. Or rather,” 
he continued, with a pedantical touch of his old fanci¬ 
fulness, “ there’s something worse than tragedy. I 
must tell you about it some day.” 

“ Talk of it or not, as you like, my boy,” I said. 

“ I don’t know,” he cried; “ I don’t know whether 
to pretend it isn’t there, to leave it aside, an undigested 
lump of horror, or to assimilate it, to make you all 
feel it. For I must live very much in you, in you 
people around me. I’ve longed for you, I’ve longed to 
be with you. I’ve been numb, and I feel the blood 
creeping through my veins again. Don’t let us pretend 
—and yet I know I shall avoid it instinctively and 
you’ll all be so infernally tactful. Yes, I think I’ll 
keep off it with the children. And yet there’s that little 
Randy, thinking, thinking.” 

We had tea with the children round the dining-room 
table. There was a kind of comfort, of snugness, in 


MARMADUKE 


179 


the party, but presently the children began to irritate 
him as they gained confidence. He was accustomed 
to such deep silences; they broke upon his habit. The 
habit might be hateful but it had subdued him. This 
merry clamour of a family was more than he could 
bear. Helen, watching him, withdrew the children 
as soon as she could. 

And then we found time hanging heavy on our 
hands. We sauntered in the garden, but he took little 
interest in that, though he approached the palings 
sometimes to gaze fixedly up or down the road. When 
anybody passed, he withdrew. He seemed to have 
lost pleasure in smoking and he talked spasmodically, 
hardly listening to what we said. We dined rather 
pleasantly and I brought out a bottle of port, but he 
didn’t finish his glass. Helen hadn’t much to say, 
and one didn’t know whether she wished for chances 
of intimacy, whether she and Marmaduke should be 
left together as is the way with lovers. We felt our¬ 
selves to be unpractised, in difficult circumstances. 
Randal kept us going with newspaper topics till Mar¬ 
maduke said impatiently: “ I know nothing of all 
this.” Then he passed Randal the walnuts in quite 
a friendly way. 

After dinner Antony Derwent came in. He and 
Marmaduke met without embarrassment and with a 
fair appearance of heartiness. Antony was still very 
much the handsome, charming lad of those distant 
days when he was Helen’s suitor. He had not suc¬ 
ceeded there, but he seemed marked for success in 
life. It was strange to see them all together again. 


i8o 


MARMADUKE 


Yes, I had wanted Helen to marry him, to go the 
smooth, suburban way; but she left the good, safe 
fellow for the uncharted Marmaduke who sat here 
darkly smiling. I met Randal’s eyes with understand¬ 
ing. We were in it, but we were spectators too. I 
watched them—Antony’s simple, friendly bearing, 
Helen grave but hardly anxious, Marmaduke enig¬ 
matic but occasionally voluble. And I liked it all; it 
seemed, at least, that the curtain had risen on an in¬ 
teresting combination. 

Marmaduke broke suddenly across some trivial 
talk. “ That forgery,” he said, “ was a trumpery af¬ 
fair. Nobody was hurt. What they did to me showed 
a lack of proportion. I was wronged. But what is 
the effect of all this repression? Has it changed me, 
steadied me, given me stamina ? It will be interesting 
to find out. I admit that if I wanted to forge again 
I should have that prison in mind. I wonder whether 
I shall ever get there again?” 

Randal said: “ Of course you won’t. We wouldn’t 
let you.” 

“ What! ” said Marmaduke. “ Am I to be watched, 
dragooned, held fast? Am I not free yet? What are 
you going to do with me ? ” 

“ You must have a good holiday first,” said Helen. 

“A holiday?” he said. “ Nothing to do? Is that 
what I want ? ” 

Antony suggested that he should “ take up golf.” 

“ You’re a good chap, Antony,” said Marmaduke. 
“ You mean well.” And then he began to laugh. 
“ Do you remember that fatal morning when you 


MARMADUKE 


181 


wanted me to bolt in a motor-car? To Appleby, be¬ 
cause you’d heard it was a pretty place! I’ve chuckled 
over that in my cell.” 

“ I know I’m a bit of an ass, but I wanted to help,” 
said Antony. When he had gone, Marmaduke spoke 
of him as an amiable bore. It wasn’t necessary. An¬ 
tony was our friend, and had nearly been more than 
that to Helen. But Marmaduke, it seemed, was on 
edge; he was always changing. “ Oh, a very good 
fellow, of course,” he said; “and so are you all. 
You’re good people. I feel that; at least I see it. 
My feelings are all out of order. Fve been living 
at high pressure to-day. I show up badly. I’m in¬ 
solent and ungrateful. A bad start. I’ll go to bed.” 
He paused before Helen, bowed slightly and said 
“ Good night.” She stared after him, frowning, as 
he went out. 


Chapter 4 

Y es; what were we to do with him? He hadn’t 
initiative, though he made comic suggestions. 
He proposed to become boot-boy and knife-polisher, 
and when Helen told him we used rustless knives he 
said that half his occupation was gone. He conde¬ 
scended to be facetious. He got into the way of com¬ 
ing out to help me in the garden and he worked in a 
fashion that was sometimes dogged and oftener des¬ 
ultory. He wasn’t sullen; he talked a good deal. He 
told us that for part of his time he had helped the 
prison cook, but that he couldn’t induce him to ex¬ 
periment, to take pride in his work. “ I told him,” 
said Marmaduke, “ that cooking began where he left 
off, and he threatened to report me to the Governor. 
I grant that you can’t get much delicacy out of a 
trough.” Then they tried him at one or two handi¬ 
crafts, but he didn’t get on well and they made him 
a clerk. “ But always back to the cell, always in 
shadow. 4 Freedom ’ had been merely a word, but 
I brooded on it till it was an obsession. And now 
I’m wondering whether there is any freedom. Am 
I free?” He said that the worst of prison life is 
that it eliminates morality. “ There’s no choice. 
You’re reduced to that old crude form of Christianity. 
You are good because you want to avoid punishment.” 
Marmaduke was shy about going outside the gar- 
182 


MARMADUKE 


183 

den because people would shake hands with him. 
They were very kind, they were tactful in a fearfully 
obvious way. He had fits of gloom and then he would 
wake up and make fun of it all. Mr. Willink insisted 
on the fiction of his having “ been abroad ” and hoped 
he would settle down now. “To be condoled with by 
the Village Idiot! ” said Marmaduke. And Miss 
Hempstall had asked him to tea. “ I think it was 
gallant of her. If I forged, why shouldn’t I mur¬ 
der: I’m sure she was relieved when I said I wasn’t 
up to it.” 

I suggested that these were trifles. “ I know, I 
know,” he said, “ but I’m surrounded—you all sur¬ 
round me—with a dreadful kindness. It’s like what 
you extend to a dying man. You’re all waiting for 
something that doesn’t come, that can never come. I 
can be only what I am and you want a miracle. Every 
man is either on the up grade or the down grade; 
I’m on the down.” 

Randal, who was present, said impatiently: “ Then 
change to the up.” 

“ Randal insists on a tonic,” said Marmaduke, grin¬ 
ning. “ The first harsh word! ” 

We fell into a kind of routine; we wouldn’t let 
Marmaduke become a sluggard, and he conformed 
fairly well to the family habits. He pottered about, 
he was obliging, he did odd jobs. There was a discus¬ 
sion about keeping hens and the possibility of this be¬ 
coming an industry under his management. Hens! 
We were all jocular about it and Marmaduke discussed 
the project with grave irony. He said that hitherto 


MARMADUKE 


184 

hens had failed to inspire our affection, but that inten¬ 
sive study of them—and so on. He was always adept 
at evading issues. When you asked him for a sugges¬ 
tion, he would say that he should like to be a mediaeval 
monarch. “ A bit of a blackguard but a patron of 
the arts. Little tricky beauties and magnanimities. 
Gestures. That’s the kind of thing I could do pretty 
well.” Randal suggested that he might become a dec¬ 
orator. Helen regarded him sombrely; he seemed to 
have become one of her children, and a difficult one. 
Occasionally he was sober, reasonable, grateful. 

He had his periods of abasement, of self-examina¬ 
tion, of analysis that was very much a rending of him¬ 
self in pieces. Why not turn him out and be done 
with him? He would be rash before the children. 
“ What d’you say to turning me out, Randy? ” And 
with some caution Randy said no. They had accepted 
him, but his withdrawals puzzled them. He wasn’t 
always ready, he was capricious and sometimes they 
waited rather sadly for the occasion. But he could 
be charming, thrilling. I was with him one evening 
in the bedroom shared by Randy and little Richard. 
He was talking nonsense to them and they didn’t want 
him to go; they were tucked in for the night but they 
wanted to prolong the day and here the best of it was 
precariously before them. It was a chilly spring eve¬ 
ning and Marmaduke wanted to go downstairs, as 
he was cold. But they bombarded him with questions 
devised to delay; they became dolorous with “ Don’t 
go, don’t go.” Then Marmaduke said: “ Tell you 
what! Shall I warm myself by getting into a pas- 


MARMADUKE 


185 

sion?” And he did it. He produced a great, fantas¬ 
tic passion with writhings, clutchings, terrific gestures. 
They were delighted and a little frightened. He kept 
it up till with a childish gratification he said: “ I’m 
warm now.” We all laughed rejoicingly and Dicky 
said: “ Do it again.” 

I was impressed by the performance. He startled 
me and I had the ridiculous idea that he could play 
Othello. There are latent abilities, talents, passions 
in us. We don’t try ourselves out; we are not, as 
they say of the athletes, extended. We mustn’t acqui¬ 
esce in Marmaduke’s failure. 

The boys often asked him if he wasn’t cold, suggest¬ 
ing passion, and sometimes, but not often, he would 
give a repetition. Mary and Lucy heard about the 
turn and wanted it too, but Marmaduke wouldn’t. He 
said that girls were another matter and he instituted 
whisperings, secrets, confidences, with them. I’ve 
seen him the good, charming father; I’ve seen him 
pathetically humble with his children. I told Helen 
that he was justifying himself and “ Of course! ” she 
said. It was an echo of that old pride. She had 
married him. I wasn’t sure sometimes when he was 
puzzling and snaring his children whether he was the 
best or the worst of fathers. I discussed it with 
Randal, who was generous. “ He makes me feel 
merely intelligent,” he said. 

In the right mood Marmaduke accepted gaily fa¬ 
cetious suggestions about his career and would enlarge 
on them. He would be an entertainer at a holiday 
hotel, the preposterous functionary who teaches you 


MARMADUKE 


186 

how to enjoy yourselves; the stage was mentioned, 
of course, but he said it was too obvious, that we 
must think of that last. And then there is “ the bush, 
or diggings, or something of that kind. Any incom¬ 
petent can make an heroic gesture, but the thing is to 
keep it up like a postman. One could do the Sidney 
Carton flourish, you know—‘ The Only Way/ That 
old rubbish has a grain of truth in it. But every man 
ought to have a handicraft to save him from despair. 
Some odd, out-of-the-way thing I might do well. I 
think I might make a good funeral conductor. Dig¬ 
nity, sadness as a fine art, a shade of irony. Has he 
ever been used as a musical theme? What subtlety 
you’d want! You must give the man a soul of sorts.” 

One day he went to Manchester. He said he was 
going to have a look round, though we didn’t know 
what that meant. He came back gloomy. What had 
he done? What could he do? He told us that he 
had determined to call on several business acquaint¬ 
ances to sound the possibilities of a return to his old 
line of work. He found it very difficult, and at last 
he took the extraordinary step of visiting his former 
employers, the people who had prosecuted him. It was 
rash, but Marmaduke said he wanted to know more 
about human nature. It appeared that Mr. Hucklow, 
“ that hoary old bandit,” had retired, but he saw Mr. 
Birchin. “You remember Galsworthy’s play?” said 
Marmaduke. “ The forger comes back from jail and 
his young employer shakes hands with him. There’s 
always a round of applause from the audience. Very 
natural; I feel like applauding, but I’ve that stupid 


MARMADUKE 


187 

notion that you mustn’t applaud from the heart. Well, 
Mr. Birchin didn’t shake hands. He watched me with 
suspicion. I asked him if he had seen Galsworthy’s 
play — 4 Justice.’ He said he hadn’t and seemed to 
resent the question. What can you do with a man 
like that? I wanted to argue with him that my pun¬ 
ishment was excessive, that there was a kind of bal¬ 
ance owing to me. He ought to have been interested 
in this, but he was cold and disagreeable. I suggested 
that he should draw up a detailed estimate of the 
consequences of my crime, of the harm done, the 
people hurt. My idea was to put this against my tor¬ 
ture and try to strike a balance. Of course, there’s 
the point that imprisonment may have improved me, 
made me a better member of society. If he had ad¬ 
vanced that I could have countered with ‘ Then why 
not give me a job?’ Pretty cunning, wasn’t it? I 
could be eloquent about the whole thing with the right 
audience. But this fellow chilled me. He really 
wouldn’t listen. What did I want? He got up, glar¬ 
ing and watchful. And then I realized that he sus¬ 
pected I might have a pistol and want to shoot him. 
What a lark! So I made a hasty movement toward a 
hip pocket—I haven’t one—and he came rushing at 
me.” 

Marmaduke made a good comic scene of it; he 
made us all laugh. He had succeeded in making a 
fool of Mr. Birchin, but to do that with your possible 
employer isn’t the way to get on in the world. For 
I suppose that Marmaduke actually had the idea that 
he might get taken on again. Or had he? He had 


i88 


MARMADUKE 


gone to Manchester and he must do something. He 
soon realized the hopelessness of his task. Wayward¬ 
ness, adventurousness, curiosity, had taken him to the 
old firm, and the only result was an addition to the 
comic repertory. He made a burlesque version for 
the children which was a great success: “ How Mr. 
Birchin went for Daddy’s pistol.” They did it among 
themselves when they couldn’t get him. He added 
extravagances and they were always acceptable. I 
had a glimpse of him as the Inimitable; so the great 
Dickens used to call himself. 

The visit to Manchester had no consequences; what 
could it have had? He made a few calls on ac¬ 
quaintances, but they didn’t know what to do with 
him. “ I think they wanted to be decent,” he said. 
“ It hasn’t made me a cynic. But how incompetent 
these fellows are socially! They can’t rise to a new 
situation; they can’t even be natural. They were all 
in a hurry to explain that they had nothing for me. 
It wasn’t because I was a forger—or, as a man put 
it, * on account of anything that has occurred ’—but 
because business was so bad. It appears that every¬ 
body is overstaffed. Useless! Useless! ” 

I thought it rather fine of Marmaduke to have made 
the experiment. And yet he spoke as though the ex¬ 
perience was an end in itself. I didn’t like his air of: 
That’s done. That’s closed. And yet perhaps it was. 


Chapter 5 

And then Marmaduke set out to look for work. We 
^ thought it was a joke; it could only be a joke. 
He insisted upon it and he positively set out in the 
shabbiest clothes he could muster—they were mainly 
mine—and carrying a brown-paper parcel. He 
wouldn’t have a rucksack because it would make an 
amateur of him; he took a little money. We had no 
difficulty in demonstrating that there was no solution 
this way, that the expedition was an absurdity. Yet 
Helen, who had been dejected by the proposal, came 
round to his side. She told Randal and me that he 
was getting depressed, that he must do something, 
try something, make a diversion. And of course, if 
he could take it as an outing, a recreation, there was 
no harm in it. But what, at the best, did he expect 
to do? 

He assured us that jail had hardened him, that in 
this early summer weather it was delightful to sleep 
in a dry ditch, that he wanted to test himself. “ We 
don’t do it enough,” he said, “ we live and die and 
never find out about ourselves. Think of an incensed 
God asking what you’ve done with your talents! 
You’re all for arranging how to live, for making things 
safe, not for living. We don’t explore, we don’t strive, 
we don’t put in the last ounce.” So he said good-bye, 
kissed the mystified babes and Helen ancf set off res- 
189 


igo MARMADUKE 

olutely. It seemed about as real as Mr. Micawber’s 
emigration, and I thought of running after him to 
suggest this, as he might have appreciated it. 

Picture post cards came from several towns or vil¬ 
lages addressed to the children, and I received a card 
with the word “ Working ” and his initials on it. We 
couldn’t make out the post-mark and we didn’t know 
what he was up to. There was a long pause, and then 
he came home. He had been away about five weeks. 

If it was a failure, it wasn’t a ludicrous one. He 
had actually got some employment on a farm and had 
continued in it for two or three weeks. “ I earned 
money on the land,” he said with a slightly burlesqued 
pride; “ I wanted to prove that I could support my¬ 
self.” I didn’t like to remind him that he had gone 
away with five pounds and had spent it. Where he 
did score a clear success was in the account of his 
adventures to the children. It began moderately; 
there was even some realism; but he began to exagger¬ 
ate. He soon got to dragons and princesses, and he 
did it all so well that I wondered whether he couldn’t 
write books for children. Whenever he did anything 
clever or distinguished I began to assess it in terms 
of a possible career. He gave to us but scrappy ac¬ 
counts of his adventure. I thought I detected some 
fiction even here, and on a question he cried, “ Oh, 
don’t pin me down! ” For a moment he was almost 
hysterical. Helen spoke to me about him, forestalling 
my protests, it would seem. She had excuses, justi¬ 
fications. The burden of them was: “ You like ‘fun.’ 
Well, he’s fun.” I agreed eagerly enough. I said: 


MARMADUKE 


191 

“ We’ve been dull all these years without him.” She 
was absurdly grateful; and yet I asked myself 
whether she still loved him. It sounds queer, but I 
think her love had become very much a sense of re¬ 
sponsibility. She mothered him, she championed him , 
he was her care, her cause. And the fellow could 
be appealing. The fine flush of her love was past' 
I think she didn’t want his embraces. She wanted 
a steady, affectionate friendship and she knew it was 
impossible. 

Marmaduke made a confidence to Randal, who 
passed it on to me. At the farm where he had been 
employed he had made an excursion into the sinister- 
idyllic. There was a girl who was something between 
the innocent maiden and the hussy, and it wasn’t very 
clear whether we were to regard Marmaduke’s depar¬ 
ture as an escape or a desertion. It was certain that 
there was material for a divorce, and Randal and I 
agreed that Helen must know. He had told Marma¬ 
duke so, and Marmaduke agreed, but said that he must 
wait for the proper opportunity; I think he considered 
that the communication must be led up to by appro¬ 
priate emotions. Ultimately I told Helen myself, and 
her attitude was self-reproachful. Since his return she 
had not been in the full sense a wife to him, and 
so she had encouraged him to evil courses. Duty! 
Duty called to her. I protested with some distaste^ 
She had done a good deal in the way of duty; she 
had her four children. Even in civilized life there is 
a frightful inequality, for the wife tires before the 
husband. And he has his rights and she her duty! 


192 


MARMADUKE 


We haven’t got formulas yet to deal with this; we 
are all in a muddle; one party would be rigid and the 
other would let loyalties and affections go. But to 
Helen I said: “ You are free.” 

I recalled those old days when I hated to see the 
young men come about her. My passion for Helen 
was tender, protective. Ah! That old romance of 
my life! It had faded? At least it had changed. 
There was a great and enduring affection. Romance 
is not enduring matter, and one would be authentic, 
sincere. I was tender and protective still, but the world 
seemed blunter than it used to be. Helen was a wife 
and a mother, and the side of her life that I saw was 
very much customs and formulas; she had never been 
articulate. It had come to this, and it was useless 
to baulk at it. Women are not porcelain; they must 
suffer, fade, decay. Why shouldn’t she go on bearing 
children? It was her work in the world, and she was 
an admirable mother. I found myself considering 
mere ways and means; the difficulties of education, 
the expenses of public schools. We hadn’t very much 
money, and a larger family would mean some conces¬ 
sion in the gentilities. 

I knew that Helen wasn’t free. She would forgive 
to seventy times seven before she sued for a divorce. 
To me Marmaduke was an immense difficulty, a per¬ 
petual obsession, but he was Marmaduke. I remem¬ 
bered that in those old days he had said: “ I know 
nothing of the future.” Helen had replied: “ I take 
the risk.” She was born to help, to comfort, to en¬ 
dure. And now the position was beyond her, as it 


MARMADUKE 


193 


was beyond all of us. What was the poor lad to 
do? He couldn’t be our bootboy all his life. I must 
make efforts, I must write to friends, force locked 
doors, accomplish the impossible. 

And then we had that horrid jar when he reeled 
in among us covered with mud and calling out in a 
thick voice: “ An experiment. Merely an experi- 
ment.” 

He swayed and sat down suddenly. Helen, Ran¬ 
dal and I watched him. “ Mark you,” he said, “ a 
burst like this is far better than soaking insidiously.” 
He got through the difficult word slowly and care¬ 
fully; he reminded me of a foreigner talking good 
English. “ It’s good for you to spend a little time 
in a ditch,” he continued, “ to experience humility. It 
isn’t dignified ? What’s dignity ? ” 

He looked at us, one by one, and I suppose he saw, 
or thought he saw, hostility. “ Get on with your re¬ 
proaches. Get on with them,” he cried truculently 
and then, with an effort, he rose to his feet. Helen 
had been standing, and now she approached him. He 
shrank from her, and one almost expected him to 
put up an elbow. But she pursued him and then, 
amazingly, we saw her take him in her arms. All 
muddy and drunk she held him fast. He cried: “ No, 
no! ” He was shaken by sobs. “ At my lowest,” he 
said, " she takes me.” And then he broke away. “ It 
isn’t fair,” he cried; “ I have to try. She won’t leave 
me alone. Why don’t you let me go down the hill, 
get it over? I’m no good. That’s plain enough. 
Oh, I’ll try. I will try.” 


194 


MARMADUKE 


There was a child's cry and she was off. Marma- 
duke quieted down. His reactions were ingenious; 
as usual he took refuge in gaieties of paradox. He 
began to talk of prohibition, he went on to Samurai 
and saints. “ The idea of taking drunkenness out of 
the world! Damn these social reformers. Wine, beer, 
even whisky! Think of the idea of them, the tradition, 
the record, the fun, the evil, the good; what shall we 
do when everything’s flat and virtuous? Ah, but I 
suppose the world’s like a child sticking to its broken 
toys. And we must put away childish things. We 
must live in the spirit. But there’s a lot to be done 
with the senses yet. Do you realize how much hap¬ 
piness there is in drink? I don’t mean coffee and 
ginger-beer. Danger? Of course there’s danger. 
What’s a world without danger? Safety first? It 
isn’t safety we want; it’s zest. Why does Randal climb 
rocks? Because it’s dangerous. Without that it 
would be tedious and stupid. Let’s keep a few drunk¬ 
ards. You could put them in preserves like the wild 
beasts in Africa. Aren’t there bird preserves ? There’s 
the ideal; the birds can fly away.” 

All was wrong, but we had rather an entertaining 
evening. Marmaduke wouldn’t change his clothes; he 
said it was a penitential garb and must be endured 
for his soul’s good. He was brilliant, or at any rate 
he made incursions upon our seriousness, which is to 
say that he made us laugh. Gradually he became 
sober, dull and sleepy. He roused himself to tell us 
that he had had a tragical idea. “ It’s a man who 
conquers himself, you know. He has struggled 


MARMADUKE 


195 


against rashnesses, irritabilities, sins, and it seemed a 
losing battle. And then he gets command of himself, 
he gets peace and serenity. Where’s the tragedy? 
Well, it occurs to him that he has merely become old 
and mild.” 

Helen watched him, occasionally glancing at us to 
see how we took it. The infatuated woman still had 
her pride in him. Her case was that Marmaduke was 
wonderful. Without that the poor girl was reduced 
to folly, convicted of an incredible choice. Randal and 
I were very ready with her to strain the idea of an 
essential, a palpitating life that is independent of any 
bourgeois success; we were even prepared for inroads 
upon bourgeois morality. And, of course, Marma¬ 
duke was the salient instance of it. He flouted the 
prudences and cautions; he was for the here and now. 
But somebody must take precautions. I think we were 
all heavy-hearted. Helen had her children, and I felt 
that I ought to get more out of them than I did. I 
recall telling her almost sharply that she drudged for 
them too much; that she was serving them, not living 
with them. I asked her if she told them tales—the 
younger ones? She blushed, admitting humbly that 
she rarely did so now. She said she wasn’t very good 
at it. I think the children had slighted her efforts 
after their father came home. Some small attempts of 
my own had been taken calmly and even indulgently. 

On that particular evening we had managed to keep 
the children out of Marmaduke’s way; he hadn’t asked 
for them. He stayed a little with Randal and me 
after Helen had gone, and he asked me what I thought 


MARMADUKE 


196 

about his going to live in London. “ The point is,” 
he said, “ that they have different values there. That 
is, the people I should get among have. A forger! 
How interesting! Quel type!” 

“ Do these societies, these coteries, really exist ? ” 
said Randal. 

“ Tve business ability of a kind,” said Marmaduke. 
“ I should make a good secretary for a Decadent 
Club.” 

He went off, leaving Randal and me together. Ran¬ 
dal was excited; I had been. I think that in my las¬ 
situde he perceived dejection, disapproval. Certainly 
he had many misgivings, but he was moved to stand 
up for his friend. I think he had felt something of 
a growing alienation and reacted from this. After all, 
he was very young. He implied some reproach to my 
Victorianism, respectability, convention. But in jus¬ 
tice he had to recall that I had an honourable record 
that wasn’t all in favour of moral rigidities. And I 
believed that my sympathy with Marmaduke was 
deeper than his. I said: “He half-believes the things 
he says, or believes them half the time.” Randal 
nodded, but he said: “ Sometimes he more than be¬ 
lieves them. He’s an artist.” I was tired and unready 
for refinements. I saw things in terms of Helen and 
the children—the children, symbols of eternity. Poor 
little beggars! I thought I could deliver a lecture on 
responsibility. Also on “ Let us eat and drink, for 
to-morrow we die.” But I was tired, I was old. 
I’m afraid I became pathetic. 

When Randal complimented me on my extraordi- 


MARMADUKE 


197 


nary elasticity I began to see some comedy in our 
scene. He was good enough to approve; I was keep¬ 
ing up my end remarkably well. The good fellow put 
his hand on my shoulder. Such a thing had never 
happened since he was a child. There was a moment’s 
tenderness between us. It was unexpected, unsuspect¬ 
ing, embarrassing. Inexpert lovers are said to be 
clumsy in their kissing. It was, to me, very affecting. 
It is when you get help and sympathy that you feel 
how much you need them. 

Randal was embarrassed too, I think, and he tried 
to carry it off with confidence. “ Bravo! Bravo! ” he 
said. “ You’re wonderful.” I said: “ Damn your 
impudence! Why shouldn’t I be wonderful?” And 
I thought: What words we use! Have we been read¬ 
ing Henry James? But if you get your words right 
in emotion can there be much or genuine emotion? 
And can you analyse as you go on? Yes, if you have 
the critical habit. 

We had had a good deal of emotion during the eve¬ 
ning, and now it seemed that a little was left over; 
Marmaduke, then, had stirred us; his function was to 
make us live; to rouse, distract, inspire us. But Ran¬ 
dal and I didn’t know how to get any further; we 
stuck fast in respect and goodwill. He accomplished 
handsomeness. “ Ah! You beat us,” he said, “—your 
generation. You’ve grace and kindliness, and forti¬ 
tude and all the good forms. We’ve more driving 
power, perhaps; we’re going to effect some kind of 
change, but we don’t quite know what.” And we 
chaffed one another about raw, bleeding life; there 


MARMADUKE 


was some recapture of spirits. Then I mentioned 
Helen, and Randal's face fell. Our parting for the 
night had almost a studied casualness. 

I saw Randal as a support, a refuge, a tower of 
strength. Yet I didn’t think enough of him. That 
other poor boy was usurping his place in my mind. 
One’s children should come first, and Marmaduke was 
hardly my child. Yet it seemed that he was part of 
my own life. And I want my own life. To live for 
my children is not enough. My life has an impetus 
of its own. Your children withdraw from you; they 
become mysteries. I’ve seen Randal and Helen con¬ 
ferring together, and I’ve withdrawn humbly. They 
have a right to their lives and I to mine. And yet 
there’s no equality. Take them out of my life and the 
loss is irremediable; take me from them and there’s a 
loss, but it’s no great matter. 


Chapter 6 


here was always the question whether Mar- 



maduke should, as he put it, face it out or be¬ 
come confidential bootboy. Randall one day mentioned 
the Trinity Club, to which Marmaduke used to belong, 
and Marmaduke told us of his recurring dream about 
it. When he was in prison he had, over and over 
again, found himself in the club and had realized with 
consternation that he wasn’t a member. He did not 
recollect the forgery, but simply that he wasn’t a mem¬ 
ber and must get out at once. And now he had had a 
variant of the dream. This time he was half-conscious 
of unreality, and as he left the club he encountered a 
member and walked up Mosley Street with him. He 
said to this man: “ Were you at the Trinity Club to¬ 
day?” The answer was “ Yes.” Then Marmaduke 
said: “ Was I there? ” 

“ I see,” Marmaduke assured us, “ that psychology 
should be a refuge for a man like me. You cease to 
be a criminal when you take yourself psychologically; 
you’re just an interesting phenomenon. I wonder how 
I should feel if I were actually in the club. Like a 
man in a dream ? ” 

“ You’d better come and try,” said Randal. 

“ Do you mean that?” said Marmaduke. 

Randal nodded. I thought it a gallant offer, for I 
could not conceive his wanting Marmaduke there. 


200 


MARMADUKE 


Randal had his elements of revolt, even of assertive¬ 
ness, but Marmaduke at the club seemed a fearfully 
uncertain quantity. He would take the lead, he might 
be outrageous. Yet Randal calmly proposed lunch 
there, and Marmaduke said reflectively: “ I shall have 
to behave.” 

“ Naturally,” said Randal. 

“ On your account, I mean.” 

I intervened jocosely, “ It might be desirable on gen¬ 
eral grounds.” 

Marmaduke said: “ It’s an interesting idea. It gives 
me something to think about. I shan’t have a bad 
day.” 

Poor devil! It seemed, then, that he lived a day at 
a time. There was nothing to carry on from one day 
to another. One knows that feeling; the dreadful loss 
of impetus in one’s life. The mood of dullness, of 
dejection, when nothing but stoicism is left. And 
Marmaduke didn’t make a good stoic. 

This idea of going to the club fascinated him. He 
talked about it for several days. “ Could I stand it ? ” 
he said. “ Could I walk into the smoking-room as 
though nothing had happened? Would there be a 
row? What a joke! Or would it be a tragedy? Am 
I not as good as anybody else now? I’ve worked off 
my wickedness, I’m purged of my iniquity. Why 
should you think yourselves better than I ? ” 

He had grown rhetorical; he was already address¬ 
ing the members of the club. He turned to Randal: 
“ Do you really mean it?” 

“ Yes,” Randal said. 


MARMADUKE 


201 


“ Then, I’ll come.” 

I waited with some anxiety to hear the result. 
Looking over the garden palings I watched them 
mount the hill together in the late afternoon. They 
seemed listless, and they were not talking to one an¬ 
other. When Marmaduke saw me he brisked up a 
little. He called out: “ We completed the programme.” 
I turned to Randal: “ Was he a good boy? ” 

“ Very fair,” Randal said. 

They came up into the garden and we walked about 
the lawn. Marmaduke said: “ There was a lot of 
damned hand-shaking. One did it, and others fol¬ 
lowed suit. It was ridiculous, because you don’t shake 
hands at a club. Old Oust was the best. He nodded 
and growled as usual. I seemed to make everybody 
unreal and uncomfortable. Most of ’em were quite 
decent and trying not to look surprised. Some were 
scandalized and kept out of the way. They thought 
I should have appeared in a white sheet. The whole 
thing was perfectly futile. I’m no nearer anything. 
It was a good hot-pot. I think the cooking’s better. 
Thanks, Randal.” 

He went into the house. Randal said that he had 
done nothing worse than wild talk. Nobody took him 
up. This discouraged him, and he became moody. 
On the whole, he had been merely endured. Randal 
was dispirited, and relieved to have the incident over. 

We were apprehensive about a possible repetition 
of the “experiment.” Randal and I had given him 
some plain talk on the subject, which he had taken 
humbly. Helen seemed to be particularly afraid of 


202 


MARMADUKE 


the children seeing him when he wasn’t at his best, but 
he would not be reckless when the children were about, 
though he might be fantastic. Watching him with 
them one day his gorgeous nonsense gave me again 
the idea that he might become an actor. I wondered 
what he would think about it and, expressing a half- 
jocular admiration, insinuated the idea. He affected 
to ridicule it, but he became thoughtful. He said that 
the actor is an egoist in chains; that he would act if 
they would let him do Hamlet, or Oswald in “ Ghosts,” 
or even the poet in “ Candida.” He would like to 
throw a veil of irony over the characters of solid worth, 
and he thought he could give a new reading of Hot¬ 
spur. The idea had taken hold of him. He recited 
Othello’s “ Most potent, grave and reverend signiors ” 
and we all thought he did it uncommonly well. 

“ But the passion of Othello ? ” I said. 

“ Ah! That I can do only in my mind.” 

I reminded him of his scene with the children when 
he represented passion in the abstract. 

“ Or was it rage ? ” he said. “ I can be anything for 
a little while. I’m not a steady goer, a born official, 
a years of service man. I shouldn’t do five years’ penal 
servitude by choice. When there’s a transmigration of 
souls, I suppose I shall be put back to butterfly.” 

But he went about thoughtfully, and I determined 
that something must be done. I would go and see Mr. 
Buckingham. 


Chapter 7 


T conquered my distaste, I was firm with my- 
self, and I went to see Mr. Buckingham. I don’t 
know how he got that superb name; probably he fitted 
himself into it; I cannot believe that it came from his 
ancestors. He was theatrical agent, manager of tour¬ 
ing companies, shareholder in theatres and cinemas. 
In manner he was meretricious and he had an appear¬ 
ance of tarnished grandeur; he struck you as being 
true to type. His acquaintance had been somehow 
forced upon me in the days when I wrote theatre no¬ 
tices and I had often taken some trouble to avoid him. 
Yet the fellow had a sort of large, theatrical tact. “ I 
know, my dear fellow,” he would say, “ that I 
oughtn’t to speak to you when I have an interest in 
this show, but I just want to point out—” and so 
on. He would offer to stand me a drink—“ or per¬ 
haps you would rather stand me one. I appreciate 
your position.” 

He treated me, as he would have said, with distinc¬ 
tion; he deferred to me, he insisted on my correcting 
his errors. He was ponderous with a vein of shrewd¬ 
ness. He coquetted with modernity in the shape of 
Shaw and Galsworthy; he didn’t like them, but they 
were worth watching. It was one of his foibles that 
he must always be explaining why such a man as he 
203 


204 


MARMADUKE 


was not in London. He didn’t make it very clear, but 
it redounded somehow to his credit and that of the 
provinces. I used to get on fairly well with him, hav¬ 
ing a quality somewhere between amiability and affa¬ 
bility which would serve me until I got ruffled. 

His office wasn’t imposing and he thought it neces¬ 
sary to explain to me the absence of clerks, of plush 
and imposing accessories. It seemed that he special¬ 
ized, rather, in rugged honesty. He was genial and 
offered cigars. I began to be amused at his presence, 
deportment, largeness of gesture and found myself 
playing up to him in half-conscious inflations. He 
made remarks of the “unexpected honour” kind, and 
I saw that he was eyeing me thoughtfully, ready for 
the defensive. 

Of course he knew all about Marmaduke; everybody 
knew all about us. His mind was capable of a rapid 
inference, and I think he guessed what I wanted be¬ 
fore I mentioned Marmaduke’s name. When I did so 
he nodded thoughtfully with “ Awfully sorry about 
it. Awfully sorry.” He wasn’t bad. I felt almost 
capable of liking him; perhaps the truth of it was that, 
being anxious to placate, I was grateful for anything 
like a concession. But I didn’t like my job; I had to 
be confidential, to be friendly; it was no use half doing 
it. No; he wasn’t bad. He was friendly and rather 
condescending. I hadn’t anything to offer him except 
a damaged son-in-law. He was a man of the world, 
and this misfortune might have happened to any of 
us. “ I mean t’say—I don’t mean t’say—not to you 
or me, but t’some one—some one near and dear, eh? ” 


MARMADUKE 


205 


His diction was getting out of hand, but he meant well. 
He was not accustomed to express delicacies of feeling. 

Presently he regained simplicity with “What is it 
you want ? ” I was wasting his time. I explained, 
as a friend, how difficult it was to place the boy. “ And 
not a bad fellow, mind you,” I said. “ He’s had his 
lesson. I’d be ready to go bail for him to any reason¬ 
able amount—charming fellow, and the point is I be¬ 
lieve he’s a born actor.” 

Mr. Buckingham gave an incredulous snort, and I 
realized that we were getting near his business man¬ 
ners. " Where did you see him act? ” 

I didn’t like to say that it was in the nursery, to his 
children. I said that, of course, he was unpractised, 
that I founded my opinion on disjointed trifles and yet 
—casting aside scruples—I would pledge my reputa¬ 
tion that he was an actor. He should do well, he might 
do wonders. 

“ Never thought you knew much about acting,” said 
Mr. Buckingham. 

I laughed cheerfully. “Well,” I said, “when I 
start writing notices again I’ll show you.” And this 
was my unscrupulous cunning; I wasn’t going to start 
again. He became thoughtful. 

“ What’s your idea ? ” he said. 

“ That you should find him a job.” 

Buckingham laughed stiffly. “ How can I do that? ” 
he said, but I saw that he was withdrawn in thought. 
Presently he said: “ D’you know Errall ? P’raps he 
might do for Errall.” 

“ Erral ? ” I said. “ You mean-? ” 



206 


MARMADUKE 


“ Must have heard of Errall,” he said, “ he's in 
your line.” 

“ You mean the man who plays Ibsen? ” 

“ That’s him. Biggest fool in the profession.” 

Of course I knew about Errall; I had seen him act. 
His company had people of talent in it and they played 
masterpieces to empty houses till it became a mystery 
how they went on. Errall was a bad actor, and you 
asked yourself sometimes whether he wasn’t a man of 
genius; such persistence as his suggested a Robespierre, 
a Parnell. His career was the most astounding pur¬ 
suit of the ideal. He couldn’t act, but he did act and 
produced an effect. He was extremely intelligent, 
and one wondered whether intelligence, devotion, con- 
noisseurship couldn’t some day hammer him into a 
great actor. I’ve fancied sometimes that the Irvings, 
father and sons, began stiffly and badly, but by will, 
labour and imagination beat their music out. I’ve 
written notices about Errall and his Company that 
I’ve fancied were worth reading. The man intrigued 
me, and his wife, who acted with him, was a dowdy 
creature who made you think of Rachel or Ristori. 
She wasn’t anywhere, but if she did arrive it would be 
in such company. 

They got “ dates ” occasionally at the big theatres 
in Manchester or elsewhere and, whether or not they 
kept the pot boiling, they did keep the lamp burning. 
One looked round the theatre sometimes at a few scat¬ 
tered enthusiasts, a few bored people who had been 
given tickets. The play on the stage represented, it 
might be, a great movement, an art that had roused 


MARMADUKE 


207 


Europe, problems on which hung civilization. And 
here was an audience of ladies who looked like cooks 
at tripe shops and men who might have been impecun¬ 
ious barmen. Solemnly they were taking their pleas¬ 
ure with Ibsen. And I went back to the office to write 
a notice that ten people would read. 

Errall amused Mr. Buckingham. He was, indeed, 
a prime joke, the kind of thing they ought to have in 
Punch. 

“ You see,” said Buckingham, “ when he’s been at 
a first-class theatre and dropped money on it—cheap 
company, too, and no scenery—he writes to managers 
at second and third class towns. They think it must 
be a catch. If the show’s good enough for a first- 
rate theatre in Manchester it’ll do for us, and so they 
give him dates. Then he comes along to Oldham or 
Chowbent and gives ’em. ‘ A Doll’s House ’ or ‘ The 
Master Builder.’ Don’t know the works myself. 
Titles all right; might be comedy or anything. Well, 
the people can’t make head or tail of ’em. They want 
their money back. And then the manager comes to 
Errall and wants to know what the devil he means by 
it—what he’s up to. Errall spouts away about fine 
art. 

“ And then,” cried Buckingham, his voice taking a 
high incredulous note, “ he comes here and wants me 
to finance him. Of course, he can’t carry on. He’ll be 
here this morning, and I might as well be out of the 
way. I don’t say,” he pursued, “ that I wouldn’t take 
the thing on if he gave me a free hand. I suppose 
there might be an audience somewhere for this kind 


208 


MARMADUKE 


of thing if you could brighten it up a bit. I haven’t 
seen the plays myself. I must read ’em.” 

I said I should like to see Errall. 

“ No good waiting,” said Buckingham. “ Irregular 
fellow. May not come.” And then he told me that 
he sometimes paid a visit to his wine merchant about 
this time o’ morning, and invited me to accompany 
him. His wine merchant! Grandiose fellow! We 
went of! to a wine cellar where they gave you “ dock 
glasses ” of a generous vintage at a reasonable price. 
It isn’t my habit to drink burgundy at eleven in the 
morning but I was sticking to my job. I paid for what 
Mr. Buckingham called the first round and a kind of 
vinous fellowship ensued. He said he was a man of 
the world himself, “ but y’know this son-in-law of 
yours—mean t’say, y’know, actors damned respectable 
nowadays. Mightn’t like it. Nay, wouldn’t like it.” 

“ Need they know?” I said. 

He nodded. “ Not bad burgundy? ” 

I said it was excellent. 

“ My turn now,” he said. I protested. He yielded. 

I had a vision of myself returning to Helen drunk 
and explaining that it was on Marmaduke’s behalf. 
He would appreciate the situation. 

It wasn't bad burgundy. I had a tolerant under¬ 
standing of the man who becomes a drunkard. Put¬ 
ting sanity aside it is pleasant to hobnob with a friend 
(Buckingham as a friend! I was getting on) and call 
for another dock glass. They seem to do things hand¬ 
somely at those docks, and a swig at the rich, dark 
stuff simplified things. Life wasn’t so difficult, after 


MARMADUKE 


209 


all. A little kindliness, a little tact and much could 
be done. Wine has had a great place in the world. 
And there’s a tang about it that saves it from being 
just an ignoble indulgence. Of course we’ve our de¬ 
cencies, austerities, asperities. These in good time. 
Everything has its place. I shouldn’t like to go about 
with a nose red from drink, and yet in the obscurity, 
the rich darkness of a suitable cellar what would it 
matter? I could see how easily, how comfortably it 
could be done. It only wants concentration. Drunk¬ 
enness is an exclusive habit, and it hasn’t a chance 
with you if you can realize how much it excludes. No, 
I hadn’t any fear for myself; not any more than when 
sinking among cushions you might fear that you would 
never get up. But I thought of Marmaduke. I won¬ 
dered whether I was making an excursion along the 
road that he might tread. 

I gazed about me. Here you got wines from the 
wood and big barrels on stillages were the chief furni¬ 
ture of the place. It reminded me of stage pictures of 
German beer-cellars, and one might have expected a 
chorus of students to troop in. The company, beside 
ourselves, was two or three rather shabby, rather sur¬ 
reptitious men. Suddenly Buckingham said: “ Dam¬ 
me, he’s found us.” 

Errall was an eager, abstracted little man of middle 
age. He had a deprecating manner which frequently 
broke into something of protest or asperity. He said 
he had called at the office at the time appointed and he 
glared at Buckingham inquiringly. Buckingham said 
it was always possible to find a man of regular 


210 


MARMADUKE 


habits, and then he introduced me with an air of “ I 
suppose it has to be.” I invited Errall to join us in 
our tipple; he wasn’t loath and I could believe presently 
that the generous liquor had percolated into some dry 
cracks. 

Buckingham intimated that I had a kind of interest 
in his show. “ What name ? ” said Errall, and then 
“ Daunt? What! of the Her aid : 1 

I admitted it and he inspected me curiously. And 
then he went off into a kind of harangue; he spoke 
of his struggle for art, his attachment to ideals, the 
masterpieces that had repelled others and fascinated 
him. He touched lightly but bitterly on want of rec¬ 
ognition, more forcibly on the callousness, the frivolity 
of the public. He offered them great art. He couldn’t 
do more. 

I suppose all this was addressed to me. There didn’t 
seem to be any point in saying it to the yawning Buck¬ 
ingham. But Errall turned sharply to him with: 
“ Have you thought about my proposition ? ” 

“You call it a proposition, do you?” said Buck¬ 
ingham. “ Why d’you stick to this fellow Ibsen ? 
Even Shaw would be better. Mind you, I’ve not read 
him. His day’s over, though, unless you can brisk 
him up somehow.” 

“ You might put in a few songs and dances,” said 
Errall, and Buckingham accepted this withering sar¬ 
casm as a reasonable concession. “ I must read ’em,” 
he said, “ but I should say that a good revue has more 
money in it than the whole boiling. Besides, I believe 
y’r highbrows are turning against him. I heard a 


MARMADUKE 


211 


literary chap say the 'Other day that poetry plays and 
crook plays are going to divide the stakes.” 

Mr. Buckingham remembered an engagement. To 
Errall’s further and anxious inquiry he said: “ Noth¬ 
ing doing.” And then: “ Mr. Daunt, here, has got 
something to say t’you.” 

He swaggered, lumbered out, and Errall turned to 
me with “You’d like to put in a little capital?” I 
said I was sorry but that wasn’t what I wanted. I 
wanted to find an opening on the stage for my son-in- 
law, and Mr. Buckingham had suggested his com¬ 
pany. 

“ Is he an actor? ” said Errall. 

I said that he had never appeared professionally. 

“ Oh, but you can’t just pitchfork people on the 
stage like that,” said he with some acerbity. “ Who 
says he can act ? ” 

I said that from little things I had seen him do it 
seemed to me that he was a born actor. Errall said: 
“ I never thought you knew much about acting.” 
Great Heaven! The second time that day! I said that 
I should like to see him in Errall’s Company, which 
provoked: “ My company? I don’t know if it exists. 
We have to depend on such creatures as this Buck¬ 
ingham. My own money has gone. Did you say you 
had nothing to invest? But if I took your friend into 
the company? Quid pro quo. I used to think I was 
uncompromising. Now, I’m unscrupulous at a bar¬ 
gain.” 

I saw that bargain looming in front of me. I didn’t 
want to commit myself, I didn’t want to lose any kind 


212 


MARMADUKE 


of chance. I asked Errall where they were acting and 
he said: “ Nowhere this week. We should open at 
Preston on Monday. I can’t do it without money.” 

He seemed a child, an idealist. What hope was 
there here for Marmaduke? What chance of stability 
in such an enterprise? I looked at my watch. But I 
didn’t like severing this slenderest of threads. It was 
a kind of surprise to find myself saying: “ Come out 
with me to lunch and have a look at my son-in-law.” 


Chapter 8 


Co Errall came out with me. He said something 
^ unintelligible about his poor wife; I didn’t know 
whether the loss of his company for a few hours was 
the trouble or a general adversity of circumstance. 
Perhaps he would have liked her to accompany us, 
but I didn’t feel that I could propose it. He was 
moody and we didn’t talk business in tram or train. 
Helen took his advent calmly and hastened to make 
some additions to our usual fare. When she learnt 
that he was with us in some possible connection with 
Marmaduke’s interests her benevolence deepened. 
Marmaduke was greatly interested, and he hit very 
well the mean between confidence and deference in 
dealing with Mr. Errall, who seemed a little scared, 
though we were all cordial to him. He struck one as 
having rather distinguished manners gone rusty. He 
regarded the children with something like astonish¬ 
ment, and it appeared that our circumstance was novel 
to him. I asked him if he had any family and he shook 
his head. At table he watched the children a good 
deal and he was gentle and pathetic with them. I saw 
him as an innocent making acquaintance with life after 
being shut up in a theatre. 

We “ did him ” as well as we could at short notice, 
but the poor man appeared to be suspicious and afraid 
to give anything away; though, indeed, he hadn’t much 
213 


MARMADUKE 


214 

to give. He preferred wine to whisky, speaking of 
it as a bottle of wine, for his speech was touched with 
reverberations from the stage. After lunch Helen took 
away her charges, Errall opening the door politely and 
gazing after them. He accepted a cigar and adopted 
the pose of the man of affairs. He said: “ Well, what 
are you prepared to do ? ” 

I wasn’t prepared to finance his company, and so I 
said that all I wanted was a job for Marmaduke. 

“ A pig in a poke,” said Marmaduke. 

“ Yes, I know nothing about him,” said Errall. 

Where’s the inducement ? ” 

“ Ah! ” said Marmaduke, “ you haven’t heard me 
recite Mark Antony’s oration yet.” 

Errall turned to me: “ Have you no interest in art? 
In our venture? You care nothing about what we de¬ 
vote our lives to ? ” 

Marmaduke asked whether all the members of the 
company were devotees. Errall said that he was think¬ 
ing of his poor wife. His poor wife! Why did he 
speak of her like that? I ventured to say that her 
acting had always interested me. “ I should think so,” 
he said. She was to him the greatest of actresses. 
He muttered something about tragedy, and one un¬ 
derstood that it was the tragedy of a thwarted life. 
“ We’ll keep going while we can,” he said. He ad¬ 
mitted that the Herald had helped. It might have 
done more. I said that we tried to be just. “ And 
justice,” he said, “ is commonly half-blind.” With a 
fleeting complacency he looked at Marmaduke for ap¬ 
proval. 


MARMADUKE 


215 


Suddenly Errall said: “ Does he want a salary? ” 

“ Naturally/’ I replied. 

“ But do you expect me to give him parts to play 
when I know nothing about him? What does he know 
of the technique of acting? Come! What’s your in¬ 
ducement? What’ll you pay ? ” 

Marmaduke looked at me blankly. “ He doesn’t 
know what he’s missing, does he ? ” 

Errall said: “ I think you might make an actor. I’ve 
been watching you, of course. What are you? What 
have you done ? ” 

Marmaduke looked at me deprecatingly. He said: 
“ Mr. Errall ought to know that I’ve done five years.” 

“ Five years ? ” Errall repeated. “ Then you’re not 
a novice ? ” 

“ It isn’t really five,” said Marmaduke. “ They let 
you out sooner if you’re good.” 

Errall stared at him and at me. “ So that’s it? ” he 
said. “ What for ? ” 

“ Forgery,” said Marmaduke. 

Errall looked at me for corroboration and I suppose 
he saw it in my face. He began to laugh as one would 
at a bitter end to a promising adventure. There was 
some passing cry of the children upstairs and he 
stopped suddenly. 

“ Do they know? ” he said. 

“ The elder ones—yes,” said Marmaduke. 

He sank into gloomy thought. “ I wonder if I 
could have the pluck to do a thing like that,” he said. 
Then he added: “ One gets out of sympathy with so¬ 
ciety, with the constitution of things. And yet-” 



2l6 


MARMADUKE 


I interposed. I put a vague case for Marmaduke. 
I used that blessed word rehabilitation. On the prac¬ 
tical side I mentioned that I would guarantee him for 
any amount. I pleaded for liberalism. What are the 
judgments of society? We mustn’t confound a man’s 
spirit with a man’s actions. I was speaking, I felt, to 
a confirmed idealist, I was pushing at an open door. 
Indeed, he dismissed society with a gesture but he 
was disconcerted to find himself outpaced. He began 
to talk about practical difficulties. 

Marmaduke said: “ Do you think it a positive bar? ” 

He said: “ Does that fool Buckingham know?” 

I said that he did, but had promised to keep it secret. 

“ That’s nothing,” said Errall. “ He’s a blabber.” 
Then to Marmaduke he said: “ Don’t think I’m pro¬ 
nouncing judgment on you. I know nothing about it 
—motives—circumstances. Why! man,” he cried, 
“ the world that my art lives in is full of sin and 
crime. I play such parts as Borkman and Lovborg, 
and play them with all the sympathy in my nature. 
I’m a fanatic, of course. And, for anything I know, 
you’re the finest spirit of the time. Perhaps not. And 
there are certain practical difficulties.” 

“ They can be got over,” I said. 

“ But what can he do ? ” cried Errall. “ And how 
much will you give us ? ” Then he turned to Marma¬ 
duke with “Give us a taste of your quality. Come! 
A passionate speech! ” 

And Marmaduke, undaunted, began his “ Most po¬ 
tent, grave and reverend signiors ”; he was well 
stocked with dramatic poetry. Errall listened with an 


MARMADUKE 


217 


air of disparagement, though Marmaduke, if unin¬ 
spired, did it well. At the end he turned to me with 
“ What of that?” 

“ He won’t disgrace you,” I said. 

“ But there’s nothing to show that he can act.” 

A small voice piped up outside the door: “Do a 
funny one.” 

Randy had been listening, and now he was hauled 
in. He was induced to recite “Tiger, tiger, burning 
bright,” and Errall listened with rapt attention. He 
was softened; we might have been playing upon his 
feelings with the child. His absorption in watching 
Randy was strange to see. It gave me a sense of the 
man’s austere, withdrawn life. He patted Randy’s 
shoulder timidly, saying, “Well done! Well done!” 
Then he fumbled in his pocket and, not understanding, 
I watched him as he hesitated between sixpence and a 
shilling. He chose the sixpence and gave it to Randy 
with “ There! There! ” and gently pushed him away. 
Randy looked doubtfully at his father, who said: 
“ Thank Mr. Errall for his great kindness.” So 
Randy said: “ Thank you for your great kindness,” 
and, grabbing the sixpence tightly, he hurried off. 

We gazed at one another. We had lost the thread. 
It was difficult to return to hard, mundane matters. 
With bitter facetiousness Errall said: “I’m afraid I 
haven’t room for a child in my company.” He might 
have been angry with himself. Coming back to reali¬ 
ties, they didn’t seem very real; the child seemed to 
have disturbed our values. I was conscious of a jerk 
in returning to the point. I said: “ Well, at least he 


2 l8 


MARMADUKE 


can declaim verse like an educated man. And you’ll 
see that he can do more than that.” 

Errall said: “Your standards of acting never had 
much reference to practical things.” 

“ You’re fellow-idealists,” suggested Marmaduke. 

“ I’ve read your essays on the play with interest,” 
Errall pursued. “ Perhaps you weren’t far wrong 
about my wife and me. I suppose I’m a failure; I 
haven’t got it in me. I persist, that’s all. She’s a 
tragic failure. Ah! If she had fair chances! ” 

“ You mustn’t undervalue her accomplishment,” I 
said, “ that’s positive. She has done remarkable 
things.” 

“ Do you know what the life is? ” he said to Mar¬ 
maduke. “ Do you realize the handicap under which 
we work? We are perpetually flogging a dead horse. 
You’ll say she has her chances. She plays big parts 
in some kind of theatre and there’s some kind of a 
company and a few people in the pit. We’re only 
human. We’re fools and dogged idealists, but what 
you’d call a spiritual success isn’t enough. If you 
shouted at us, applauded, made us feel alive; gave us 
bouquets, champagne, adulation, honours! Don’t treat 
us like dogs. We can’t afford dresses, we can’t afford 
anything. How can you be great in an empty theatre ? 
You’re failing all the time. We are tainted with that 
curse of acting: we want to cut a figure. But she shall 
play Cleopatra. You think I couldn’t play Antony? 
Yes, I know I haven’t got the flair, the facility—what 
you people call passion—but I’m intelligent, I can see it 




MARMADUKE 219 

all. Yes, and I can feel it. But to have to take the 
stage when you feel that nobody wants you-! ” 

I suppose the man was enjoying his frankness. I 
played up to him with the suggestion that you might 
find analogies in the other arts; in painting, literature. 
“ Why! ” I said, “ we all have to contend with feel¬ 
ings such as yours. I might be starting a book now if 
I could believe that half-a-dozen people really cared 
whether I ever wrote again or not. Artists have to 
force their wares on reluctant buyers just like any 
manufacturer/’ 

“ Oh, come, sir! ” said Marmaduke. 

“ Perhaps you think there’s a demand for your An¬ 
tony? ” said Errall with gloomy sarcasm. 

“ Are you prepared to take me on any terms? ” said 
Marmaduke. 

Errall was snappish. “ My dear sir,” he said, “ don’t 
you see the absurdity of it? Take you to what? You 
wouldn’t get your first week’s salary—if you had a 
salary.” 

The subject dropped, though we hadn’t done with it. 
We didn’t know what to do with Errall next. We 
took him into the garden and he stared at flowers, 
trees, the landscape, as if he had never seen such things 
before. I think he must have regarded them as un¬ 
commonly realistic scenery; he was concentrated on the 
theatre. He seemed to know an enormous amount of 
dramatic verse and frequently quoted from it; he 
might have been prepared to understudy everybody in 
everything. We prevailed upon him to play croquet 



220 


MARMADUKE 


at which he was fantastically inefficient. Trying to 
make a long shot he failed to hit his own ball. The 
game petered out and we sat about on deck chairs. He 
said: “I suppose curates still play this game?” It 
was his effort at small talk. 

We had tea, and his melancholy suggested that he 
was thinking of his wife, but he didn’t seem anxious 
about trains and I thought he hadn’t done with me 
yet. Marmaduke was restless, like a dog that knows 
there’s food about. Presently Randal came home and 
I got him aside and explained the position. We 
watched Marmaduke talking to Errall on the lawn, 
and Randal said: “ Look, how eager he is. This has 
put new life into him. Do something if it’s possible.” 
I said that the thing was sure to fail, that the company 
must come to grief again. And, of course, I couldn’t 
spare much. I wasn’t going to impoverish the family 
over a wild-cat scheme. If a hundred or two—I went 
out to Errall and Marmaduke, and Randal came with 
me. 

Errall seemed timid and unwilling to talk business. 
We went over some old ground and I tried to get him 
to outline his plans for the near future. He didn’t 
despair of bringing in “ that ridiculous Buckingham,” 
but I asked him how he could expect Buckingham to 
support what was from his point of view a mere per¬ 
sistence in failure. Errall muttered something about 
compromise and eyed Marmaduke as though measur¬ 
ing him as a part in it. Then Helen’s head emerged 
from an upper window with “ Dinner in ten minutes,” 
and Errall started up with exclamations about trains 


MARMADUKE 


221 


and his wife. But he didn’t want to go yet and was 
easily induced to stay. 

Over a glass of port we made a very vague arrange¬ 
ment. I was to “ do something ” and Marmaduke was 
to get up the part of Oswald in “ Ghosts ” for a be¬ 
ginning. “ Ghosts ” was now freed from the censor¬ 
ship and it had a valuable reputation for being scandal¬ 
ous, which might give it a chance. Possibly this would 
appeal to the preposterous Buckingham, who might be 
induced to consider “ riskiness ” as a reasonable com¬ 
promise in that matter of brisking up. Poor Errall, a 
man of niceties and compunctions, was wondering how 
far he could go. He wanted the masterpiece, not the 

scandal, but if a play could be both, why then- His 

wife, of course, would play the mother. It was out 
of her line, but an actress of genius hasn’t a line; she 
can play Puck and Lady Macbeth. Sadly he said: 
“ I shall have to do Parson Manders.” 

Randal asked him why he didn’t do some Shake¬ 
speare, and he said there were too many people in his 
plays. “ Do you know the size of my company? ” he 
said; “ and, besides, I’m a modern.” 

“ Is Ibsen still modern ? ” said Randal, and Errall 
glared at him. Then, to my embarrassment, Marma¬ 
duke asked him if he knew my plays. He shook his 
head and said that he must be getting home. 

Helen had made dinner earlier than usual with a 
view to his departure, and now little Mary came in to 
say good night. Coming to Errall she put up her face 
to be kissed. He was baffled and touched her head 
with “ There, there.” She waited and he looked at 



222 


MARMADUKE 


her earnestly. Then he took her by the shoulders and 
kissed her forehead solemnly. He made quite a cere¬ 
mony of it. “ He has no children/’ he said, and then 
asked me whether Macduff was referring to Macbeth. 
I said it was impossible to say, but that I thought it 
was about two to one the other way. He said I was 
quite wrong. 

Randy came and he and Errall shook hands as man 
to man. Yet Errall was wistful. “ Children, chil¬ 
dren,” he said. It was a new idea. Then he said he 
would like to do “ King John ” and that his wife 
would be magnificent as Constance. “ But there’s 
Arthur,” he said, and asked Randy’s age. He had 
begun to think of him in terms of his blessed plays. 

Marmaduke returned to the subject of my plays and 
proposed that we should read one, taking parts. Er¬ 
rall started as though at a serpent in his path. “ Is 
that what you’re up to ? ” he said. “ I deal only in 
masterpieces.” He was magnificently haughty. But 
he was scared too and demanded a time-table. Helen, 
appealed to on this practical point and anxious to lose 
no chance for Marmaduke, offered him a bed. But it 
was too late to wire to his poor wife. The telephone 
was suggested and it appeared that if you telephoned 
to the chemist in the street near the lodgings, he might 
prevail on his boy to take a message. Errall wanted 
to stay; he didn’t want to relinquish me till he had got 
a little further. But when he heard that we hadn’t a 
telephone, but must go to a call-office, he was discour¬ 
aged and thought he might as well go at once. Randal 
intervened, offering to see the message through, and he 


MARMADUKE 


223 


was instructed to promise sixpence for the boy and to 
order the aspirin, as before, to be sent to Mrs. ErralL 
That was settled, but for some time Errall was sunk 
in gloom. I inquired about the other members of his 
company and he said: “ Starving in garrets—like my 
poor wife.” He glared at our dishevelled table as 
though such comparative luxury was abhorrent to him. 

When Randal came back and announced that the 
message had been received and would certainly be 
passed on to Mrs. Errall, he cheered up amazingly and 
shouted, “ Let’s have one other gaudy night,” and he 
followed this up with “ What about that play of 
yours ? ” I demurred, and when Randal insisted that 
what he required was modern novelties of fine quality 
he hissed out: “ Who’s good enough to pit against 
Ibsen? ” You couldn’t help respecting such scorn. I 
had to check Marmaduke’s eulogy of my works; I think 
he saw himself bringing glory on the family by acting 
in them. I suggested that we should read “ Mac¬ 
beth,” but Errall eyed Helen doubtfully, thinking, I 
suppose, that she could hardly take his wife’s place 
as Lady Macbeth. Errall wanted to read “ Little 
Eyolf ” or “ The Pretenders ” and mentioned his am¬ 
bition to play “ Emperor and Galilean,” beginning in 
the morning and allowing intervals for refreshment. 

We had a great evening: we started on the third act 
of “ Othello,” the chief parts being assigned to Marma- 
duke and to Errall, who said he wished to try some new 
business as Iago. It wasn’t a mere reading. Marma- 
duke knew most of Othello’s speeches and gave tongue 
to them royally. At the great climax he had Errall by 


MARMADUKE 


224 

the throat and bade fair to throttle him. In his excite¬ 
ment he forgot the words—he had dropped the book— 
and he bellowed inarticulately. You had to see and 
hear it to believe it of Marmaduke, and yet I recalled 
the times when to the terror and joy of the children 
he had “ got in a passion.” Randal stared at him in 
wonder. “ Why! ” he said, “ this is a primeval sav¬ 
age.” Helen looked on in amazement and Marma¬ 
duke, recovering his sanity, glared at her apprehen¬ 
sively. 

And Errall, spluttering and choking, was furiously 
astonished. “Is he a lunatic?” he asked me, and I 
began to laugh. Errall really seemed to fear that we 
were foisting a madman on him. 

“ Splendid raw material! ” said Randal. 

“ I agree with you about the rawness,” Errall said 
and then—oh, magnanimously!—he said that Marma¬ 
duke had something in him. “ Though,” he added, 
“ he would soon use up a company.” He laughed; 
we all laughed. And then we became aware of little 
Randy, in his pyjamas, peeping through the door ajar. 
“ Do it again,” he said. He had heard it and now 
wanted to see it. 

“ Again ? ” grumbled Errall. He was fingering his 
throat. 

“ You’ve got to keep your head,” he said to Marma¬ 
duke, but he eyed him with respect. Helen led Randy 
away, telling him in answer to his curious inquiries that 
they had been having a rough game. “ Do they have 
rough games as late as this ? ” he said. He regretted 


MARMADUKE 


225 


this absurd custom of sending him to bed before the 
fun was over. Would they be induced to do it again 
to-morrow ? 

Marmaduke admitted that he forgot the words and 
said he didn’t want to let down the spirit of the scene. 
Words, he would agree, are a moderating influence. 
He affirmed, on no particular evidence, that Salvini’s 
greatest effect was when he roared like a bull. To 
an actor words are no great matter. 

Errall declined to agree, but pronounced for Iago 
as the part that an intellectual actor would choose. He 
was dissatisfied because Marmaduke’s overpowering 
vigour had prevented that new business he had pro¬ 
posed to show us. Randal suggested doing the scene 
again and Errall’s hand went instinctively to his throat. 
Marmaduke promised moderation and offered to give 
the speeches without handling Iago, but Errall heroic¬ 
ally declared that a reasonable amount of throttle was 
necessary to the effect. So Marmaduke was set off 
again at the great speech, “ Farewell the tranquil mind, 
farewell content.” He did it finely, and then his de¬ 
termination to spare Errall took the edge off a little. 
He hurled Iago upon the sofa with strict moderation 
and, according to instructions, he relapsed into a chair 
by the table and buried his face in his hands. And 
then came Errall’s business. With a snarl he plucked 
out an imaginary dagger and darted upon Othello in 
a crawl. But, as Errall put it to us afterwards, intel¬ 
lect became dominant again. He sheathed the dagger, 
rose to his feet and composed himself to his speech 


226 


MARMADUKE 


“ Are you a man?” It was ingenious enough, but I 
nearly exploded when he turned round to us with 
“ See? ” We assured him that we did see. 

Later we did read an act of one of my plays. At 
the “ curtain ” Errall said: “ Stop! Wait a bit.” 
Randal wanted to continue, but Errall said he wanted 
to think about it. “ I see the Idea,” he said. “ All 
that change and emotion and then the normal life be¬ 
gins again. The people return to the conventions, but 
it can never be the same.” He was intelligent about it. 
He said he would like the rest another time, but that 
now he would go to bed. “ Eve had change and agita¬ 
tion enough,” he said. “ I wish I could get back to 
my wife, but I suppose that’s impossible now. It has 
been stimulating—too stimulating.” 

But he didn’t get off. He had some whisky and a 
cigar. “ Extraordinary! ” he muttered. “ What a 
day! ” He lived a quiet life. He went about forcing 
upon people what they didn’t want, but he had learnt 
to do it without excessive agitation. 

We talked of the drama and he gave us lofty, ideal¬ 
istic stuff about it. Marmaduke went to sleep and 
Helen had long since gone to bed. Randal held on 
politely, but we were all becoming petrified. Errall 
abandoned his cigar; he said it was too strong for him. 
The evening petered out. 


Chapter 9 


I found myself strangely involved in theatrical 
enterprise. I knew little about it and I couldn’t 
think that Errall knew much. My enthusiasms are apt 
to be clogged with scepticism and, anyhow, I couldn’t 
see the Erralls as what is called a commercial proposi¬ 
tion. No; from that point of view they were absurd, 
but you may be sublime and absurd. I’ve an incurable 
common sense, but I hoard the memory of a few rash¬ 
nesses. I began by lending Errall £200, and I suppose 
the whole venture cost me close on £1,000. The com¬ 
pany was on a very small scale, necessarily. I couldn’t 
afford it but, of course, it was on Marmaduke’s account, 
on Helen’s account. And yet not altogether. I had a 
great reluctance to see this shaky edifice of the Erralls 
collapse. At times I thought more about them than 
about Marmaduke. One thing pushes another out; 
it is a dull man who keeps his life in right propor¬ 
tions. I sympathized with that magnificent idealism. 
It hurt me when Marmaduke declared that Ibsen was 
now a fossil, an historical survival of extraordinary 
interest. It seemed disloyal to the Erralls, who still 
believed that they were at the heart of things. If 
they were not they were ridiculous. 

Marmaduke didn’t lead them to triumph, but he was 
not incompetent and was capable of giving surprises. 
One of his attractions was that you couldn’t see to the 
227 


228 


MARMADUKE 


end of him. The trouble was that he became so terri¬ 
bly bored by the life. He had no companions; the 
people in the company were either vulgar or queer. 
Mr. and Mrs. Errall, he said, were abstractions. I 
said that Errall was a very real person to me, and he 
maintained that the evening at Darley was exceptional 
and that, of course, everybody must have a fundamen¬ 
tal humanity. Mrs. Errall lived on the higher plane, 
but she darned the company’s socks. They were en¬ 
thusiasts, certainly, and enthusiasm, Marmaduke de¬ 
clared, was the only thing that mattered. He cried 
out for zest, gusto, but how could you exercise these 
in lodgings at Bolton? Randal asked whether you 
could have zest in tranquillity and Marmaduke said: 
“ Certainly. Look at the humming-top.” He was al¬ 
ways ready for fun, and a little nonsense raised his 
spirits. 

“ Of course,” he said, “ to the critical, artistic eye 
the Erralls are magnificent; they are wonderful speci¬ 
mens. You may throw them phrases and they seize 
them as a dog a bone. ‘ An insertion of the spiritual 
life upon a material world.’ Things like that. And 
so they are ready to try ‘ Love’s Comedy ’ on Old¬ 
ham.” 

Helen performed prodigies in making excursions to 
towns at which Marmaduke was acting and then rush¬ 
ing back to her children. Occasionally Marmaduke 
got home, and once he was met with an inquiry from 
little Mary: “Have you been to prison?” His phi¬ 
losophy deserted him. He had dealt equably or charm¬ 
ingly with many situations as difficult, but now he was 


MARMADUKE 


229 


angry, bitterly vexed; he spoke harshly to the child. 
Later he made it up with her. Children, when their 
anger or resentment is gone, will abase themselves like 
dogs. Oh, she had been naughty, naughty. And oh, 
he declared, she had a cruel, wicked old daddy. They 
sentimentalized together and Helen, joining them, sym¬ 
pathized and yet helped to restore sanity. 

I felt this life of ours as very sad; I was dispirited 
about it. And then, abstracting myself from its moods, 
from its failings and shortcomings, I could believe that 
it was sad only because, like all beautiful things, it 
passed. It seemed that the inertia of age was descend¬ 
ing upon me. Randal was full of life and vigour, 
Helen fulfilled her function and rose to the occasion, 
the children were quaint, charming, wayward, as chil¬ 
dren should be. Marmaduke? Well, he was a dis¬ 
turbing, doubtful fellow, but he made us live. Had I 
got to the point that I must have people ranged ? And 
I had always wanted to keep up, to maintain sympa¬ 
thies with revolt, to see life with fresh eyes. 

Really, the attempt to keep Marmaduke up to the 
scratch had its comic aspect. We were all so intent 
upon it, we were past the stage of wondering why 
such a disproportionate amount of help and direction 
should be given to him. Sometimes Helen was away 
for two or three nights with him, Randal braved these 
ghastly manufacturing towns on occasion, I did what 
I could; even the good Antony Derwent sometimes 
looked him up. The thought that we were concentrat¬ 
ing on him got on his nerves sometimes. He was mag¬ 
nanimous in enduring our help. 


230 


MARMADUKE 


The repertory of Errall’s company was not large 
and it wasn’t necessary to do much rehearsing. Errall 
had intentions to do plays by Claudel, Maeterlinck, 
Verhaeren, Strindberg, Tchehov, but these were in¬ 
definitely postponed for opportunity. So Marmaduke 
had time on his hands, and the amenities of Lancashire 
and Yorkshire towns are soon exhausted. The actor 
who doesn’t play games is driven to museums, parks, 
picture-galleries, and public-houses. Poor Marmaduke 
was bored; he was at the end of his resources, Helen 
must do all she could, and presently I learnt that she 
had made what was, perhaps, for her a natural and in¬ 
evitable concession. She had children enough, but 
now it was possible that she might have more. But 
Marmaduke one day said to me gloomily: “ Why can’t 
Helen and I be fanatical together about something? 
Look at those Erralls! ” 

I said: “You have children.” 

“ I sometimes forget the children,” he said. “ I’m 
an egoist. I wonder if there’s more than I think in 
custom, tradition, duty. I’m not so bad, really, but I 
want a fresh inspiration every time. And then I sink 
back on lethargy and original animalism. I dare say 
you want a bit of duty to float you over part of your 
life. I wish I could do something for the children.” 

“ You can do lots for them,” I said, but he stared 
at me vacantly. 

The company came to Stockport, which might ap¬ 
pear to be an unlikely town. Ah! but Stockport has 
its vein of idealism. Perhaps it will die away, perhaps 
we shall all return to primeval mud. Stockport has its 


MARMADUKE 


231 


Garrick Society, an association of people determined 
to see, read, act good plays. Marmaduke might object 
that they were always trying to do the right thing; 
they were not following their own blessed egos to death 
or destruction, or life and joy, or wherever they may 
lead. It is an old controversy and the formulas shift 
a little. These meritorious efforts are not supported by 
the fashionable hedonists, but an enthusiasm which 
takes you over some barren tracks is better than none. 
Marmaduke was capable of sympathy with such for¬ 
lorn hopes as this venture of the Erralls. Their per¬ 
formances were the antithesis of what you used to get 
at the St. James’s Theatre under Alexander or the 
Haymarket with Cyril Maude (I am a little antiquated 
in my examples but they will serve). Trousers were 
not very well pressed, dresses did not come from 
Paris, provincial accents sometimes offended the fas¬ 
tidious ear and, even worse, when they couldn’t get 
“ dates ” in a theatre they used a hall. But Stockport 
had its theatre, and Errall brought his company to this. 
As Darley was within easy range it made a kind of 
holiday for Marmaduke, and we all felt that things 
were looking up. 

We grasped our nettle and invited a few friends to 
go to see Marmaduke act. His best part was Oswald 
and so, in spite of my misgivings, “ Ghosts ” was se¬ 
lected. We brought Marmaduke away with us after 
the performance. The evening would have been a 
great success if it hadn’t been for the play. Why 
should superior things be horrid? Mrs. Errall made 
no success at all; I suppose she was too sharply tragic 


232 


MARMADUKE 


and missed that blessed touch of nature which should 
have made us kin. I was vexed with myself for seeing 
her through others’ eyes. I wanted to know what 
Randal thought of it. He said he was afraid it was 
all up. Helen, poor girl, flushed and trembled when 
Marmaduke seemed athwart our conventions. We 
were all hampered by the social sense. This wasn’t 
doing Marmaduke any good. I suggested to Randal 
that there was something fine about Mrs. Errall—a 
thwarted, starved genius for acting. He grunted 
doubtfully. Was it my own illusion? I couldn’t be 
certain of anything. 

Our friends were very polite. Several times they 
applauded faintly. An enthusiastic minority in the 
cheap seats did applaud. Probably the Labour Party. 
You clever people! What plays you like! Above our 
heads, of course. But what a pleasant evening! This 
came after sandwiches and claret-cup at home. Mar¬ 
maduke was in high spirits. He ridiculed the show; he 
took the Philistines’ point of view. Errall’s preten¬ 
sions! Mrs. Errall’s deadliness! He said they were 
all like undertakers’ men and pew openers. Randal, 
who hated anything like disloyalty, spoke to him in a 
sharp undertone and he pulled up. “ Oh, yes,” he 
said, “ the thing’s absurd and I’m the most ridiculous 
person in it. I’m the worst actor. I haven’t a tithe of 
these people’s talent nor a shred of their enthusiasm. 
Beside the Erralls we’re all sunk in sloth and material¬ 
ism. They are the play; comedy and tragedy in one.” 
He went from one extreme to the other. Our guests 
didn’t understand him. A queer fellow. Madness in 


MARMADUKE 


233 


the family. Why didn’t we plead that at his trial? 
Poor Helen Daunt! She hadn’t done well for herself. 
And here still was Antony Derwent, who used to ad¬ 
mire her, faithfully handing sandwiches to her. Was 
he going to remain a bachelor all his life for her sake? 
Sentimental. Ridiculous. 

Marmaduke Abney was clever, of course, but what’s 
the good of that without principle? Well, we agree to 
let bygones be bygones. We are magnanimous in these 
days; we shake hands with criminals. The Daunts 
have been very unfortunate and perhaps it’s not their 
fault. There is something rather taking about Mr. Ab¬ 
ney at times. There is satisfaction in knowing that 
you’ve been tactful and kind. 


Chapter io 


T met Mr. Buckingham in a Manchester street and 
he stopped me when I tried to pass with a nod. He 
was moved, he was swayed, by disinterested emotion. 
“ I’ve seen that show,” he said, “ I’ve seen it. Why! 
You never—of all the—upon my word ”—He couldn’t 
get it out. It was an indignant crescendo. He hadn’t 
words. He shook his fist at the sky. Then: “ They 
asked me to see it,” he said. “ They invited me. 
They sent me tickets, and I went. I was to put money 
into that, was I? Why, sir! It wasn’t even decent 
—not respectable, you know. Of course there was 
no fun. No man alive could make anything of it. 
As for your nephew—son-in-law, is it?—he wasn’t 
any worse than the others. The women’s dresses— 
they must have come in for the fag end of the summer 
sales—Oldham Street, you know. Errall? He’s a 
maniac. Any one can see that he’s not all there, but 
I never expected such lunacy as that. It was like a 
funeral with people howling now and then.” 

I tried to get away, but he caught hold of me. 
“ You don’t mean to say you’re putting money into 
that,” he cried. “You mustn’t. Great Scott! Are 
you off your nut? See! Here’s a grid. Stuff a 
few pound notes down it. Light your pipe with ’em. 
Just to let off steam. It’s as good as what you’re 
doing.” 


234 


MARMADUKE 


235 


He clutched me as one would a friend who insisted 
on cutting his throat. Yes, he was quite disinterested. 
He couldn’t bear to see a fellow-creature acting like 
that. Doubtless there was the pride of the expert 
behind it all. 

I received a telegram from Errall. The company- 
had penetrated to the Midlands and was doing a week 
at Loughton. They were at a hall and the business 
was wretched. Errall wasn’t explicit, but I gathered 
that, among other things, Marmaduke was in some 
kind of trouble. As Helen didn’t know about the tel¬ 
egram I told her, before I went, that I wanted to 
have a talk again with Marmaduke and Errall. She 
nodded sadly. It was understood between us that the 
experiment was failing, that it might be very near 
its end. She said: “ You’ve done enough. We’d bet¬ 
ter have him home. And then-” 

She gazed blankly at me, through me. She was 
thinking of her four children. She was a heavily 
encumbered woman, and I had dreamed of a free and 
glorious life for her. But of course, life can’t be 
free, though we must cherish the idea, we must have 
our turns at freedom. She had none; she had be¬ 
come a drudge. So, in my bitterness, I thought, but 
she wasn’t merely that. She could still be superb 
and elegant; if ever, for a time, she lost her serenity, 
she regained it. My pride in her, my affection, were 
undimmed, but I suppose they had become less ro¬ 
mantic. I foresaw the time when she would be a 
mother to me. She said again: “ You’ve done 
enough,” but then she said: “ I can’t see my way.” 



236 


MARMADUKE 


“ Don’t look too far ahead. Take it day by day.” 

“ Would you say that to Marmaduke ? ” she asked. 

I said: “ Certainly not. You’re different persons.” 

“ We’re a perpetual burden on you.” 

“ My dear woman,” I said, “ what could I do with¬ 
out you ? How can I ever do enough for you ? Don’t 
deprive me of my grandchildren; I couldn’t get on 
without Marmaduke now. And, of course, there’s old 
Randal. I think it’s quite an amusing family to be 
in.” 

“You talk like Marmaduke sometimes,” she said. 

With mock dignity I said: “ Doesn’t he talk like 
me? ” 

It was like the old childish days when I tried to 
coax her into a happy temper. The happy temper 
came now if some favourable light could be thrown 
on Marmaduke. 

“ He has tried, hasn’t he? ” she said. 

“ Like a brick,” said I. 

She smiled, but “ There are times when it’s all 
hopeless,” she said. 

I replied with obvious encouragements. I think I 
overdid it. I made out that our circumstances were 
really very jolly, that we were getting on nicely. 

“ Yes, we’re killing time,” she said. 

Killing time! That thought has often afflicted me. 
There’s no movement, no change or trivial ones; 
you’re getting older but there’s no casualty yet; and 
then may come a mood in which you say: they can’t 
expect much from me now. You are tired, you don’t 
want to bother, you read trivial things and defer 


MARMADUKE 


237 


big things to the energetic mood. It’s natural enough, 
I suppose. But for young people to be killing time! 

“ Don’t look sad,” said Helen. 

“ I’m all right,” I cried. “ It’s you. I want you 
to be happier. You don’t have much fun.” 

“ You can’t be unhappy,” she said, “ when you’re 
very, very grateful.” 

But I couldn’t be satisfied with that kind of happi¬ 
ness for her. We were dissatisfied, loving one an¬ 
other, missing one another. 

“ I wish I could be more to you,” she said. 

“ That’s impossible.” 

“ Oh, but cleverer, I mean. As you say, more 
amusing.” 

“ We might have nice little literary discussions,” I 
said. “ But we go deeper than that.” 

“ I sit there stupidly, darning the children’s socks.” 

I shook my head smilingly and she smiled in re¬ 
sponse. We gazed at one another, examined one 
another wistfully. Something had gone, we were sub¬ 
ject to change and decay. You can’t perpetuate your 
zests, you can’t nail your colours to the mast. The 
glory of her youth had gone, my passion had yielded 
to tender affection. 

She said suddenly: “You wouldn’t trust me with 
all you are thinking about Marmaduke ? ” 

“ But it’s impossible, my dear,” I said. “ I’m always 
thinking and half-thinking about him. It’s too com¬ 
plicated; we should never end; it’s my principal occu¬ 
pation.” 

“With what you know about him, then?” 


238 


MARMADUKE 


“ This is all I know/’ and I took Errall’s telegram 
out of my pocket and gave it to her. “ I thought it 
was time he did something amusing.’' 

She stared at it frowningly: “ What does it mean ? ” 

“ Nothing very serious, I think. I fancy Errall 
wanted to ensure my coming. You mustn’t bother 
about these little episodes. We shall never make Mar- 
maduke into a staid citizen.” 

“ I thought something was wrong,” she said, “ and 
it falls on you again.” 

“ Don’t make a tragedy of it,” I said. “ I showed 
it to you because I don’t want to hide things and I 
know you’re no fool. Get away to those children. 
I must be off.” 

She said: “ I’m going to be sensible and calm. 
That’ll help you, won’t it ? ” 

“ Of course it will,” I cried. I felt almost exultant. 

It was late in the evening when I got to Loughton 
and, after leaving my bag at an hotel, I set out for 
the hall which was the best accommodation Errall 
could get. It was hardly dark, but I had some diffi¬ 
culty in finding it in a comparatively obscure street, 
and when it was positively identified I was disconcerted 
to see that it was closed, blank, deserted. Here, then, 
was disaster. I was trying a door handle when a 
policeman came round the corner. “ Here! what’s 
this ? ” he said, and, rather unnecessarily, turned his 
lantern upon me. I asked why the place wasn’t open 
and was telling him that a company should have been 
playing there—I pointed to certain bills—when he 
interrupted. “ They’ve chucked it,” he said. 


MARMADUKE 


239 


“ Why? ” 

“ No business, I suppose. Nobody wanted this stuff. 
Crazy lot.” 

“ And where are they all ? ” 

How was he to know. “ One of ’em’s in quod.” 

My heart sank. “ Which? Who?” 

“ Nay, I can’t tell y\ Did hear the name. Sh’d 
know it if you mentioned it.” 

I suggested Jenkinson, Tompkins, Fotheringay. He 
shook his head. “ Abney ? ” 

“ That’s more like it,” he said. 

“ In prison? What for?” 

“ Drunk and disorderly.” 

“ But they only fine for that.” 

“ Ah! But he cheeked the court.” 

“ Damnation,” I said. 

“ Friend o’ yours?” he said condescendingly. He 
looked at me appraisingly and I suppose it was my 
respectable appearance which prompted: “ Owes y’ 
money ? ” 

“ That’s it,” I said. 

“ No go, then,” he said, and it occurred to me that 
a policeman has something in common with a bank. 
I asked about sentence and circumstance. He said he 
wasn’t in court, but his mate on a near beat told him. 
“ Five shillings and costs as usual. No need for any 
fuss. But he ups and says it’s absurd. Insult he said 
it was. Man who’d done five years to be fined five 
shillings. What about his status in the world of 
crime, he says. Sublime to ridiculous. Y’never heard 
anything like it. He wouldn’t ’ush. Might ’a been 


240 


MARMADUKE 


drinking all night, so fresh ’e was. So ’is worship 
give him seven days. I must be gettin’ on. This isn’t 
strictly regular.” 

He didn’t know where the rest of the company were. 
He thought the caretaker of the hall lived Eden Street 
way. Didn’t know his name. The post office wouldn’t 
be open. However, he directed me to a police station 
—the one at which Marmaduke had been charged. 

There they mixed sympathy with condescension. It 
was no use talking about bail; he had got to do his 
seven days. “ A lively gentleman. Said he’d done 
five years. Any truth in that ? ” 

The sergeant was disposed to be chatty. He re¬ 
minded me of the friends who are grateful to you 
for breaking in upon their dull evening. Yes, he had 
been in court. He didn’t see what Marmaduke’s game 
was. I suggested that it was just a bit of high spirits. 
“ Yes,” he said, “ but it’s a rum thing it should last 
till morning. There’s lots of high spirits the night 
before.” As an experienced observer he had been 
struck by the difference a few hours make. “ The cells 
takes it out of ’em. And then in liquor there’s what 
you call a reaction. Scientific fact. They may have 
been as merry as lords, but in the morning it’s like 
as if they had come out of a deaf and dumb asylum. 
Not always. Your friend seemed full o’ beans. Dunno 
why.” 

And I didn’t know why. Marmaduke was like that. 
There was always the chance of releasing a spring in 
him. He was dull and moody, and then he suddenly 
became hilarious. He was conscious of the trick, and 


MARMADUKE 


241 


said he wasn’t sure whether it was throwing off the 
mask or putting it on; sometimes one and sometimes 
the other, perhaps. 

I inquired about Errall, and the sergeant put me on 
his track. He eyed me curiously. “ Not much in the 
pound there, I’m afraid, sir,” he said. I suppose he 
wondered whether I was a friend or a creditor and 
wished to suggest the less offensive alternative. 


Chapter n 


T found Mr. and Mrs. Errall at poor lodgings and 
they received me with gravity, with dignity, with 
a sufficient sense of importance of the occasion. “ You 
have heard ? ” Errall said, and I nodded. I thought 
he was referring to Marmaduke in particular, but that, 
it appeared, was a secondary consideration. “ There 
was practically no audience whatever,” he said. ‘‘We 
had given away a few tickets. I thought it due to the 
handful of people there to come before the curtain and 
make an explanation. I was sorry it couldn’t be re¬ 
ported.” Mrs. Errall intervened: “The world should 
hear it,” she said. 

Errall continued: “ I have written out the gist of 
it and sent it to the local paper. I suppose it will 
appear to-morrow. Perhaps not. It is a statement 
that should echo down the ages. The company is 
disbanded. And, by the by, Abney is locked up. 
Gone to prison. An absurd and unwarrantable affair. 
Such a ludicrous incident is, in the circumstances, 
most inopportune.” 

“ He has not the sense of tragedy,” said Mrs. 
Errall. I felt annoyed. “ Tragedy has a considerable 
range,” I said, and I thought: If these people can’t see 
Marmaduke as tragic, how can they hope to succeed 
in their work? Of course, I wasn’t fair to them. 
Marmaduke could be an irritant. 


MARMADUKE 


243 

They were full of themselves, of this long-deferred 
calamity, of the blindness and ingratitude of the world. 
They were fanatics; they had cultivated their little plot 
in a kind of cold frenzy; they were magnificently 
superior and possessed by a lofty incredulity. The 
end of the world had come and nobody took any no¬ 
tice. Posterity was invoked, but one didn’t see how 
posterity was to be got at; even if the editor of the 
paper printed Errall’s protest and the paper was filed 
at the public library it wasn’t likely that posterity 
would refer to it much. The Erralls sat there gazing 
into the future, and one wondered what it would be 
for them. You may see likeness in unlikeness, and 
they suggested to me Mr. and Mrs. Micawber with 
the buoyancy gone. 

Mrs. Errall was darning her husband’s socks, and 
she did it clumsily. It went to my heart, but I hard¬ 
ened a little at the idea that it was self-conscious: see 
what I am doing, she might have said, when thousands 
should be hanging on my words. 

But I felt that I must be “ nice ” to them. I said 
some handsome, resounding things. They were true, 
or very nearly true. I silenced all my doubts. I found 
myself making the kind of speech that accompanies 
a piece of plate when a citizen has given a park to 
his native town or gone on being meritorious for fifty 
years. I looked at them as I spoke. I looked from 
one to the other, and their eyes were shining. Great 
God! The woman was trembling. Yes, she should 
have been swaying those thousands. A thwarted spirit. 
They had done their part. I was rhetorical. I rolled 


244 


MARMADUKE 


out the phrases, and it seemed to give me, and them, 
satisfaction. Memorable in human effort—a garden 
blooming in the desert—great art interpreted by great 
artists—that kind of thing. I wasn’t insincere. At 
any rate, I felt it. 

I am a good sort of fellow. I gave them a splendid 
talking, and I don’t think they’ll forget it, but I cooled 
to the conviction that I am a good sort; I’m not very 
proud of it, of course. I had put something like a 
thousand pounds into their preposterous venture. 
That had gone and it didn’t seem to weigh on them, 
though Errall did refer to it. He said some handsome 
things about me and Mrs. Errall murmured assents. 
They considered that in spirit I was one of them. I 
think that in the future they will point to me as a 
justification. I reminded them of the great art patrons 
of the Renaissance. I was the kind of thing that 
was wanted, but there should be dozens of me and 
richer ones. I was the type of the critical connoisseur, 
the pure embodiment of enthusiasm for art. And then 
Errall faltered. I think he had remembered Marma- 
duke. And, indeed, Marmaduke was a qualification 
of all this; I felt that Marmaduke, somehow, was not 
quite in good taste. No; he was not the point. Pres¬ 
ently, perhaps. Now, these people deserved anything 
I could give them. 

There was a thump or bang on the door, and a 
maid, who recalled the lodging-house maid of farce, 
entered bearing a tray. It was their supper of bread 
and cheese and they stared at it, as though in amaze¬ 
ment. Then Errall called my attention to it with a 


MARMADUKE 


245 


grandiose gesture. I had vague thoughts of propos¬ 
ing a heartening supper somewhere with champagne 
and oysters, but it was late, and I didn’t know how 
to set about it; besides it was impossible, and it would 
have spoilt their tragic pose. 

Mrs. Errall invited me to join them and asked the 
maid for another plate. She murmured something to 
her husband and he said: “Yes, let us have beer— 
bottles of beer.” The maid looked doubtful but con¬ 
ceded the possibility of it. I realized that I was 
hungry; it was long since I had eaten. The bread and 
cheese seemed uncommonly good and I was glad to 
see that the loaf was substantial. I ate heartily and 
enjoyed the sharp bitter beer. Errall persisted in 
ironic gestures and interjections, but presently we got 
on to a more human plane. 

And what about Marmaduke? I ventured, at last, 
to introduce him. Was he any good? Might he have 
a chance in another company? Would he make an 
actor? They looked at one another, and Mrs. Errall 
said he was good for an amateur. Errall began to 
talk about technique. They didn’t appear to have any 
particular opinion. I suppose they hadn’t noticed him 
much; he was outside their more pressing preoccupa¬ 
tions. He had done passably the parts they had given 
him but we were no nearer to anything. They had 
it on their minds that, after all, the £1,000 wasn’t 
simply an offering at the shrine of art and that, in 
some form, I might complain of not getting value 
for my money. And Marmaduke was hardly with 
us in the impassioned relation we had achieved. I 


MARMADUKE 


246 

suppose we had been enjoying ourselves on an ideal 
plane and he represented the return to anxieties, em¬ 
barrassments, everyday matters. 

I realized that these people could do no more for us. 
The venture hadn’t been a success, but I wouldn’t have 
agreed that it was folly to have tried it. And yet the 
wicked thing about failure is that it breeds doubts, 
and doubts disorganize your mind. If Marmaduke, 
his work in the company being precisely what it had 
been, had achieved success, I suppose I should have 
joined whole-heartedly in the chorus of applause. In 
what spirit should I discuss the Erralls with a man of 
the world? Perhaps I should not come so near to 
the truth as when I startled them with my praise. 

I should soon have to face Helen again. I had so 
often forced comfort upon her by insisting on Mar- 
maduke’s charm, his wit, his vivacity. But what are 
all these if he failed and failed? Of course I had my 
formulas and tried to give them variety; he lived 
in his qualities, not in his deeds. But you can’t get 
away from the world altogether. You revolt against 
it, you hate its obvious, superficial measures, but you 
can’t live alone; you can’t in the ridiculous old phrase, 
keep yourself unspotted from the world. I think that 
our small section of the world would have thought it 
more “ in keeping ” if Marmaduke, being such a failure, 
had been dull and melancholy. He persisted in being 
an entertaining fellow. 

I wondered what the Erralls were going to do, where 
would be their next stopping place, what means of 
support they had. I inquired about other members 


MARMADUKE 


247 


of the company and it appeared that they were all gone 
or going. Errall told me that he had used the re¬ 
mainder of my last remittance to speed them on their 
way, and I assured him that he had done right. They 
were reticent about their own movements and I felt 
that I must offer a loan. I went about it delicately 
and it was declined. They were ready to take my 
money for the cause of art, not for themselves. 

“ Some day, perhaps-” Errall began and trailed off 

into vagueness. I had a brutal impulse to say, “ No, 
you don’t ”—but I refrained. I knew they were poor 
and suspected that they were almost penniless. I had 
a cheque-book in my pocket and produced it. He 
watched me writing and when I handed over a cheque 
for £50 with friendly apology and insistence he had 
the curiosity to glance at it. He made as if he would 
tear it, but paused and then asked his wife for the loan 
of her scissors. With these he cut the cheque cere¬ 
moniously into four pieces and handed them to me. 
I was bewildered, but I didn’t like to ask what he was 
up to. I think it was some preposterous refinement 
of courtesy. He wanted emphasis, but to tear the 
cheque would be rude. 

Then Errall took some money out of his pocket 
and counted it. “ I wish you would lend me a pound,” 
he said. “ That will take us to London.” 

“ And then ? ” I said. 

He looked at his wife. She hesitated and then said: 
“ We go to friends.” 

They both looked gloomy, but they were acting their 
parts with conviction. Friends? What kind of 



MARMADUKE 


248 

friends, I wondered. Such people tire out their 
friends. Well, it wasn’t my business. I didn’t know 
what else to do. I felt very sorry, very useless. I 
shook hands and left them and I haven’t seen them 
again nor heard of them. 


Chapter 12 


Tl/T armaduke would not be out of prison for nearly 
a week, so I went home and gave the dismal 
news to Helen. I tried to make light of it and, indeed, 
the thing in itself was a trifle; it was as part of a 
sequence that it mattered. She was burdened, and I 
must add to her burden. We didn't say much to one 
another; our understanding was deep enough. She 
spoke of Marmaduke without resentment. I had the 
thought that a nagging wife might have kept him in 
check—or driven him to despair. I didn’t reproach 
her. She was anxious about little Richard who, ob¬ 
scurely, inexplicably, was an ailing child. She thought 
of going to Loughton to bring Marmaduke home, but 
she didn’t want to leave Dick. Randal jocularly pro¬ 
posed that we should make up a party, but we were 
not in merry pin and he apologized for heavy-handed¬ 
ness. 

I think we all thought of Marmaduke’s home-com¬ 
ing from his long imprisonment. That had elements 
of excitement and hope that were absent now. Ulti¬ 
mately it was agreed that I should go. Randal said: 
“ Why anybody?” But then I think an image of 
Marmaduke as a straying child in danger came to us 
all and he acquiesced. 

Our poor Dick was anaemic and listless, puzzling 
the doctors. Helen and I stood by his bed and she 
249 


250 


MARMADUKE 


told him that when I came back Daddy would be with 
me. He reflected and then said: “ Are Daddies al¬ 
ways good ? ” It was cunningly impersonal. 

Helen said: “ Nobody is always good.” And Dick 
said quickly: “ You said Granfer was.” 

Helen looked at me and I was a little disconcerted. 
“ Ah, well! ” I said, “ when you get old it isn’t so 
easy to be bad. There’s nothing bad that you want 
to do. And I’m not always good.” 

“ She said so.” 

“ She may think it because she loves me.” 

“ Does she love you more than Daddy ? ” 

I said “ No.” 

“ Do you love her more than Daddy ? ” 

I said “ Yes.” 

“ We all love one another,” Helen said. 

“ You can love people when they’re not good, can’t 
you ? ” said Dick. 

“ You rascal! ” I said. “ Your mother always loves 
you.” 

“ That’s it,” he said, but he added: “ Not if they’re 
very bad.” 

“ It makes it harder,” said Helen. 

He murmured: “ He can’t be very bad.” 

We affected not to hear. I think it was addressed 
to us, but he didn’t want to be explicit. In his queer, 
diplomatic way he had appealed for reassurance. 
What had he heard? How could you prevent the 
children hearing? You couldn’t segregate them, and 
there are such fools in the world. 

I said: “ Well, it’s jolly to think we shall have 


MARMADUKE 


251 


Daddy back again and he may stay quite a time now.” 

Gravely he said: “ I am glad.” 

I suppose that all these poor children were learning 
discretion, reticence. We couldn’t be frank with them. 
Marmaduke was more capable of it than any of us; 
he could, on occasion, be astonishingly open, and often 
provoked their curiosity. I think he gave them some 
rash and whimsical pictures of himself. And then, 
though neighbours or friends were usually careful, 
their children overheard things and passed them on 
to ours in mangled form. 

I went to Loughton, made inquiries and awaited 
Marmaduke’s appearance. I watched a heavy-looking 
door for some time on a drizzling morning and pres¬ 
ently I was joined by a respectable-looking young 
woman. We stood together, in a shyness of sympathy, 
I think, and she glanced at me several times. Then 
she said: “You’re not the missionary, are you?” 

I told her I was waiting for a friend, and she said: 
“ Eh, dear! A friend o’ yours! ” Then she added: 
“ I don’t know as missionaries ’ll do my man much 
good.” 

We both watched the door constantly; it looked 
as though it would never open, but it did. Three 
men came out and, incredibly, Marmaduke was one of 
them. I couldn’t remember afterwards whether he 
came out first, second or third. The strange thing 
was that he looked very much like the others at first. 
He, too, was tousled and depressed, and I was thank¬ 
ful that Helen was not there. The three separated 
without a word to one another, and I didn’t like that, 


252 


MARMADUKE 


though I suppose it was to be expected. TKe woman 
claimed her man and he gave a short, bitter laugh. 
They were gone in a moment. The missionary, as I 
supposed him to be, came hurrying up and, after glanc¬ 
ing at Marmaduke and me, got hold of the third man, 
who seemed very shy of him. Marmaduke and I 
moved off together and I wasn’t sure whether he was 
glad to see me or not. He said: “ Very good of you. 
It puts me damnably in the wrong. Why didn’t you 
bring a horse-whip ? ” The poor fellow was queru¬ 
lous. He looked up at the building. “ A poor show, 
this,” he said. “ Anti-climax.” 

“ That’s the line you took with the magistrate, isn’t 
it? ” I said. 

“ Oh! I’m done, I’m done,” he cried. “ I repeat 
myself.” He looked round with: “ What’s become 
of those other poor devils ? ” 

I told him that a wife had claimed one and a mis¬ 
sionary the other. “ I suppose you’re a kind of mis¬ 
sionary, too,” he said. 

“ Only a friend,” I said. 

He was silent for a time and then: “ How did you 
know—did the papers report ? ” 

I explained that I had heard from a policeman 
and mentioned the Erralls. “ But when was this?” 
he exclaimed, and when he heard that I had been to 
Loughton twice he seemed touched by remorse. “ Why 
do you do it?” he cried. “Why don’t you let me 
go rip? I can’t understand you. It’s a kind of mad¬ 
ness. Of course, there’s Helen. I’m forgetting 
Helen.” 


MARMADUKE 


253 


“ Yes, there’s Helen, too,” I said. 

Presently he asked: “ Did the Erralls say I was a 
bad actor? ” 

I said they didn’t, though the word amateur had 
been mentioned, and there was some talk about tech¬ 
nique. 

“Oh! Technique, technique!” he said impatiently, 
“ they’re mad about it and it’s mainly humbug. And 
yet I see that you can’t carry things by storm. These 
people are the opposite to me. I can’t stick at things, 
and they can spend their lives whipping that dead 
horse. Of course I admire them. I see the idea, but 
I get tired of it; I want another idea. My dear sir, 
you must have spent a small fortune. And what have 
you got for it? ” 

I suggested breakfast, as neither of us had fed ade¬ 
quately, and we turned into a small hotel, where they 
seemed surprised to see us. However, they did well 
for us with good coffee and bacon, so the situation im¬ 
proved. “ I’ve such a despicable power of recovery,” 
said Marmaduke. “ I’m almost happy. Do you know, 
I was nearly happy in that jail just by remembering 
that I wasn’t in for five years. Of course, I’m ashamed 
of myself. I have these primitive, ordinary feelings, 
though they get overlaid by worse stuff. Isn’t it 
strange that you and I should be thrown together like 
this? Just by my marrying Helen. I shall see her 
again directly and those funny little children. I wish 
I could do something for you all. I wish I could 
give the family a treat.” 

“ That’s easy enough,” I said. 


254 


MARMADUKE 


“ How ? ” he asked uneasily. 

And I said, affably enough: “ By being less of a 
damned fool for a time. ,, 

“ Yes,” said he, “ you’ve every right to upbraid me.” 
And then: “ Why did you say 4 for a time ’ ? You 
think I can’t possibly—carry it through ? ” 

I looked at my watch and said it was time for us 
to move, as I had to call for my bag. 

“ You didn’t take me to your hotel,” he sneered. 

I looked at him: “You wish me to explain why? ” 

“ No, no,” he said, “ I oughtn’t to have said that. 
I’m capable of small meannesses, petty resentments. 
They make me wretched, hopeless.” 

“ When I mentioned 4 for a time ’ just now,” I said, 
44 1 was thinking of it in the narrow sense of a treat. 
I’m clumsy. I’m ready to trust you, to believe in your 
effort.” 

44 I’m a brute if I don’t respond,” he said. 44 And 
you are only one. There’s Helen and the babes. 
There’s Randal—everybody. It’s a ludicrous point of 
view, but you make it so hard for me. Didn’t I say 
that once before? Yes, I repeat myself. I suppose 
that position of bootboy is still open?” 

We travelled home comfortably, drearily; looking 
out of the window, reading newspapers, not talking 
much. Once he looked up and said, 44 Curious! This 
transfusion of blood from one person to another! I 
wonder if it’s effectual.” 

I said that most of us preferred to get on with our 
own blood. We didn’t pursue the subject, but I saw 
him take his penknife and cut out a paragraph. 


Chapter 13 


M armaduke made a quiet re-entry and we all tried 
to avoid any suggestion of calamity. We talked 
over the affair of the Erralls calmly, agreeing that 
that particular game was up. Marmaduke was hu¬ 
morous at their expense, but he said that they were 
first-rate of their kind; he didn’t say what kind. One 
didn’t like to acquiesce in positive failure, and I said 
something about possible openings on the stage else¬ 
where ; my heart sank at the idea of renewing relations 
with the egregious Buckingham. But I found that 
Marmaduke considered his theatrical career to be 
closed. “ You can’t rush it,” he said. “ You want to 
electrify audiences right away, but the producer 
thinks of which leg you’ll put out first and whether 
you go round the table or the chairs. With years of 
effort I might be middling. No; bootboy for me.” 

Helen went out to see Dick, and he followed her. 
They were away some time, and when they returned 
Helen said that Dick was asleep. They had been 
“ looking at him.” Helen was agitated, I could see* 
and presently Marmaduke went out to ask Dr. Hep- 
worth to come round in the morning and have a good 
overhauling of Dick. 

Hepworth came. He was one of the middle-agecf 
men who retain triumphantly something of ardent 

255 


MARMADUKE 


256 

youth. He was friendly, jolly and very alert with 
Dick. The examination was a delightfully gay dis¬ 
guise of serious intent. Helen, Marmaduke and I 
were all there, and presently we went downstairs with 
Hep worth, whose final jokes with Dick were called 
out on the way. 

He was, on the whole, reassuring. There was noth¬ 
ing organically, detectably wrong. Yet the boy wasn’t 
strong, his power of recovery from slight ailments 
was disappointing. He wanted plenty of good food, 
good air, a fair amount of exercise—that kind of 
thing. The seaside? As you like, but Hepworth 
wasn’t conventional about that. The air of Darley 
was good enough, though the winter might be a little 
bleak. 

Marmaduke listened with some impatience and 
then: “ He’s anaemic?” 

“ Well, yes, I dare say,” said Hepworth. 

“ He wants blood ? ” 

Hepworth looked at him curiously: “ There’s some 
virtue in blood,” he said. 

And then Marmaduke sprang his scheme upon us. 
Transfusion of blood. That’s what Dick wanted— 
what he was prepared to give. He was terribly in 
earnest; he wouldn’t let Hepworth wave him aside. 
Hepworth was quite unprepared for such a proposal; 
he was discouraging, sceptical; he wouldn’t be re¬ 
sponsible. Marmaduke brought out his newspaper 
paragraph and read it with emphasis. Was there 
nothing in it? Hepworth wouldn’t say that. Didn’t 
he agree about the anaemia? Hepworth said it wasn’t 


MARMADUKE 257 

an extreme case; it wasn’t a case for a dangerous 
experiment. 

“ Danger to whom ? ” cried Marmaduke eagerly. 

But Hepworth wouldn’t pursue that. He clapped 
Marmaduke on the back. “ Good father! ” he said. 
“ It isn’t everybody who would-” 

Marmaduke interrupted him. “ Oh, don’t make a 
fool of me! Take it seriously. Don’t you know? 
Ask somebody. Who are the authorities? I want to 
do it.” 

Helen watched them, pale and speechless. She 
sought my eye, wanting an understanding with me; 
wanting, I suppose, my recognition of Marmaduke’s 
heroism. I didn’t feel quite ready for that; it all 
seemed unreal to me. Hepworth consented, under 
pressure from Marmaduke, to think it over, to keep 
an open mind as far as he could. He went away 
frowning. 

And then we had Marmaduke in wild mood. 
“ Helen consents,” he cried. “ It’s obviously the right 
thing to do. These doctors are the most timid, con¬ 
ventional people alive. Little Dick, little Dick. The 
danger’s trifling, Helen. None to him. What’s 
against it? It’s just the thing I can do. It’s my 
chance, it’s what I’m fit for. I give my blood to my 
child. Look at the idea of it! This is where I come 
in.” 

I said: “ Yes, but you mustn’t do it if it isn’t nec¬ 
essary.” 

“ Ah! ” he said. “ Listen to old sober-sides! Lis¬ 
ten to the wisdom of the ages. And he lets me bleed 



MARMADUKE 


258 

him. He likes it. Money—blood—where’s the differ¬ 
ence? Don’t be selfish. Here’s something for me. 
What a relief! What a help! Glorious! I can do 
it. Danger? But I want danger.” 

“ Is this to be for you or for Dick? ” I said. 

It was a cruel deflation. He drooped under it. “ I 
suppose I’m merely a fantastic wind-bag,” he said. 
“ The idea attracted me.” 

Helen spoke to me later. She shrank from the pos¬ 
sibility of such an ordeal for Marmaduke, but the 
thought of it fascinated her and he had infected her 
with his enthusiasm. I told her that I was pretty sure 
Hepworth wouldn’t countenance it. 

He reported adversely, and by that time Marma¬ 
duke had almost abandoned the idea himself. I think 
this was in part because Randal had told him that 
there wasn’t any risk in the operation. So Marma¬ 
duke hardly listened to Hepworth’s explanations and 
we were all cold and dispirited. 

But Helen told Dick about it. She thought it would 
extol his father, and it did. Dick listened with awe 
while Helen improved the occasion. I think the anal¬ 
ogy was suggested with that mysterious Jesus who kept 
a benevolent eye on us from somewhere skywards. 
Was Daddy, then, as good as Jesus? Anyhow, he was 
“ astrornarily good.” And so it seemed to Helen. 

Marmaduke went out that night and I think he 
visited several public-houses. He came home drunk. 
I had persuaded Helen to go to bed, and she knew 
why; she didn’t want to see him while we were there. 
The poor fellow came in with a miserable swagger 


MARMADUKE 


259 


that wasn’t like him. Randal and I received him coldly, 
but he was talkative. One had to say something and 
I said: “ This won’t do.” 

He put out a deprecating hand. “ Granted,” he 
said. “ Taken as read. Spare me the details. I ap¬ 
preciate ”—but he found the pronunciation of the 
word rather too much for him and he stood there 
ridiculously practising it. After three or four attempts 
he proceeded, with an ineffable gesture. “ Very well,” 
he said, “ I understand your attitude. It is familiar. 
It is perfectly correct. What is more interesting is 
my attitude. D’you ’predate that?” 

He appeared to be addressing Randal, who said: 
“ Your attitude is that of a crazy fool.” 

“ Conventional! ” said Marmaduke. “ Perf’ctly 
conventional. I’ve passed, on the whole, a pleasant 
evening.” 

“ We haven’t,” said Randal. 

“ I regret it,” said Marmaduke. “ I regret it ex¬ 
tremely. We’re not simple enough in doing what we 
like. Why don’t you go out and do something you 
like? You good men spend too much time by the 
hearth. A ring at the door-bell and you’re lively 
again. Who is it? The village idiot? Well, that’s 
better than nothing. Why didn’t you go out to look 
for him? You’re like me when I wanted the warder 
to bring my food. I wasn’t hungry, but anything to 
break the damned monotony. It’s only your dullness 
that keeps you virtuous. Be alive! Oh, be alive! 
Thank God! Helen’s gone to bed.” 

He fell asleep in his chair. Randal and I sat watch- 


26 o 


MARMADUKE 


ing him. We had ugly, desolating thoughts about 
him, I suppose. He looked almost innocent. He 
was marred, slightly tainted. We studied him in¬ 
tensely; we might have been waiting for a crisis to 
pass in his dangerous illness. We didn’t seem to re¬ 
quire anything more to occupy us. He filled our 
thoughts. There he sprawled, sodden, with glazed 
features; he didn’t look his best. His face was not 
set in strong lines and yet I thought I could see the 
marks of what he had endured. A weak man forced 
to endure doesn’t become a strong man. Somewhere 
far back in him you realized the boy. He hadn’t been 
a happy boy. 

I looked at Randal, who was intent upon him, and 
I thought I could see wistfulness, sentiment in Ran¬ 
dal’s gaze. Perhaps he was conscious of this for, 
meeting my eye, he said briskly: “ Well, he keeps us 
entertained.” We agreed upon that, and then help¬ 
lessly, sluggishly, we went over some old ground about 
the value of the eccentric, the rebel, the disturbing 
element. Marmaduke awoke suddenly and without 
apparent cause. He looked quickly from one to the 
other of us and we were a little embarrassed when, 
frowningly, he said: “Well?” 

I said: “ We were considering you.” 

“ Yes, I’m a bit of a problem for you,” he said. 

“Well, solve it! Solve it!” said Randal impa¬ 
tiently. “ You’re the only one that can.” 

“ How ? ” he said sullenly. 

“ As a beginning, by not getting drunk.” 

His sleep had brought some gain of sobriety, per- 


MARMADUKE 


261 

haps some loss of truculence. He said: “ I hardly 
think I shall become a sot. It implies regular habits 
and I’m not good at those. I merely like a little 
pleasure now and then. Don’t let us have prohibi¬ 
tion. Think of the enormous amount of pleasure that 
alcohol gives. Has that occurred to these fanatics? 
Why shouldn’t we cultivate our senses ? Asa spiritual 
world it’s a failure.” 

Randal said: “ It’s time you stopped your foolery 
—made your effort.” 

“ Effort! ” he said. “ But don’t you see that in 
a man like me there’s far more moral effort than 
in you safe, regular people ? That’s why there’s more 
joy in Heaven over me. Sinning and repenting is 
a much bigger thing than virtuous consistency. I 
can’t see that you have to make any moral effort at 
all. I congratulate you. But I am perpetually striv¬ 
ing—occasionally, anyhow. Wasn’t it William the 
Silent who never won a battle, but was always turn¬ 
ing up again? That’s like me. Yes, it’s the bad 
people who are really the good ones.” 

We let him run on; we had got the habit of spending 
a good deal of time listening to his paradoxical utter¬ 
ances which, indeed, were considerably better fun for 
him than for us. He hadn’t finished. “ I suppose 
Hepworth was quite right,” he said, “ and I dare say 
you think it was just a theatrical display—my usual 
egoism. But I had a vision of it as strange and beau¬ 
tiful. I would give my blood to my child. I tell you 
I am capable of beauty. And I thought of making 
Dick strong again and of our all being so happy to- 


262 


MARMADUKE 


gether—yes, all of us—you two, as well. It was to 
wipe out something of the long score against me. 
Then you tell me it isn’t necessary, and that, anyhow, 
there’s no danger. What good is it to me if there’s 
no danger? I’m nervous, I’m timid, and that idea of 
blood-letting made me shudder, but I had a great 
emotion. I would have done it. No use. I don’t 
.seem to have luck.” 

We had nothing to say, though he looked at us 
"with invitation or expectancy. So he went on: “ Mind 
you, I’m not one of those who want just to live in 
their children. That’s sentimental nonsense. I have 
my own life to live. That’s what makes my impulse 
to help Dick so fine. I had to overcome a consider¬ 
able reluctance. I was sustained by the idea. But I 
am afraid you are not interested.” 

He got up to go to bed and paused at the door. 
“ Excuses, apologies, are tiresome,” he said. “ They 
may be taken for granted. Yes, on a big scale. Grati¬ 
tude, too—as much as you like. I’m a damned nui¬ 
sance anyway.” 

He went out with a tragic gesture. There was a 
courtesy of farewell in it, but more of the relegation 
of himself to infernal regions. 


Chapter 14 


TtyC armaduke was affably jocose about what he 
called our efforts to save his soul and he assured 
us that he took an intelligent interest in it. “ You 
may have deep, obscure plans,” he said, “ though usu¬ 
ally you spread the net in sight of the bird. Con¬ 
scientiously, I do my best to walk into it. But what’s 
the latest idea? ” 

“ Society,” said Randal. “ We’re good of our kind, 
but we don’t give you scope. You want more people. 
Variety.” 

“ Well, then,” he said. “ Why won’t you let me 
go to the public-house where I can get it ? ” 

Randal said: “ That isn’t variety. You’re with the 
same miserable set of soakers every evening.” 

“ They’re different at each pub,” he said. “ I must 
go the round.” He was always ready for a prepos¬ 
terous argument. 

Of course the social position wasn’t easy, but some 
people were aggressively liberal and ready to claim 
Marmaduke as a brother. Of course we didn’t want 
to force him on anybody and at a hint of coldness to 
him we were ready to freeze. Yet it’s only decent to 
give people a chance to be decent and Marmaduke must 
have distractions. It happened that in the fine autumn 
weather some people conceived the idea of a garden- 
party and to this “ everybody ” was invited, includ- 
263 


MARMADUKE 


264 

ing Mr. and Mrs. Abney. Marmaduke went through 
phases from contempt to complacency and settled down 
to something like pleasurable anticipation. He had 
the gift of prominence even without his peculiar quali¬ 
fication, he liked a wide stage, and a bad eminence was 
better than none. Helen had expressed the family 
wish that he should be careful and he went determined 
to avoid any flamboyant indiscretion. I watched him 
dispensing his slightly ironical politenesses, with ap¬ 
proval. 

And then came disaster. He overheard a jocular, 
supercilious reference to himself as the jailbird. Young 
Lister—a cubbish fellow—considered “ Sorry. Didn’t 
know you were there,” an adequate apology, but 
Marmaduke flamed out at him. They were rolling 
over together on a flower-bed when I came up and 
helped to separate them. It was a deplorable incident 
and the general agreement was that it had ruined the 
party. Small talk was difficult and clock golf tame 
after this. Still, the claret-cup was good and there 
was something in Marmaduke’s subsequent contention 
that he had put some life into the party, had made it 
memorable. Fortunately Helen did not see the scrim¬ 
mage. She came as Marmaduke was making a formal 
speech of apology to his hostess. He did it too neatly; 
I think he enjoyed that part. I gave her a hurried 
hint of the position. Marmaduke withdrew with a 
flourish and Helen took his arm. It was all a little 
stagy. Randal and I remained a short time to handle 
the shattered amenities. Randal confessed to me as 
we walked home that he dreaded being bored by 


MARMADUKE 265 

Marmaduke over this affair. Poor Marmaduke! Was 
he sinking to that? 

There was no evading the subject. Randal told 
him to be philosophical over trifles. “ Trifles!” he 
cried. Who does not hate to be robbed of a griev¬ 
ance? 

“What else?” said Randal with acerbity. “Fel¬ 
lows like Lister exist. You know that. You know 
that what he said is well within his range. If you 
didn’t hear it you might infer it. Do face the facts.” 

But Marmaduke wasn’t going to give up his op¬ 
portunity. Lister was some kind of business man and 
therefore a rogue. Analyse what you call your hon¬ 
esty! He appealed to an imaginary adversary. The 
crowning charge was that these business men weren’t 
amusing. He was on the verge of humour. Then 
he turned to Helen. “ Are you on my side ? ” he 
said. “Are you still on my side? You would like 
a little more quiet respectability. No wonder. What 
about an example to the children? That’s the weak 
link; that’s the place where we shall break asunder. 

“ I must do you justice,” he continued. He turned 
to Randal and me: “ She was rather wonderful when 
she walked home with me from that blasted garden- 
party—blasted’s good, don’t you think? It’s jolly to 
get the right word now and then. Yes, she walked 
with her arm in mine, only saying little things and 
radiating faithfulness. So it seemed. She doesn’t utter 
reproaches, doesn’t look them. And yet she doesn’t 
miss anything. That’s terrible. She sees me all the 
time.” 


266 


MARMADUKE 


We all gazed at Helen as she sat there, a figure of 
inscrutable benignity, mending the children’s clothes. 

“ Yes,” said Marmaduke, “ she takes everything in 
and gives nothing out. The worst of Helen is that 
she hasn’t infinite variety. There are times when I 
think I might have got on better with Cleopatra. Oh! 
I can reverence Helen with any of you—before any of 
you. The faithful wife! The good mother! She’s 
magnificent on her plane. She becomes monumental. 
I can’t do with it all the time. I can’t be steady in 
idealism like you virtuous bourgeois. Nor in con¬ 
duct. What a fool I was this afternoon! And what 
a chance I missed for something delicately ironical! 
Deuce take it! That garden was a good setting— 
the flowers and the women’s frocks and everybody 
a bit startled except me. I mismanaged it.” 

We had nothing to say. We were perpetually in 
the position of having nothing to say. And now 
Marmaduke went on: “Of course I can’t see much 
in stoicism, can you ? Perpetual benignity is very much 
the same. I don’t want you to work your faces about 
as they do at the movies, but the repression of emotion 
is absurd. It makes such a dull world. Helen, why 
don’t you quarrel with me sometimes? You’d do it 
grandly. Like rolling thunder. I get bored, you 
know, like the man who trod on the lion’s tail.” 

Helen bent over her work and he perceived that 
she was crying. He sprang to his feet. He stood 
over her, before her, looking down, as it seemed, on 
the crown of her head. I think he had a delicacy 
about investigating her face. He was stiff with re- 


MARMADUKE 


267 


morse. He muttered: “ A brute! A common brute.” 
He whispered: “Forgive me.” 

Helen gathered her work together, patted his shoul¬ 
der and went out of the room. He hastened to open 
the door for her and watched her mounting the stairs. 
Then he came back and asked Randal for a cigarette. 
Thoughtfully he said: “ Even if you’re a bit fan¬ 
tastical you keep getting back to simple humanities.” 

Randal said: “ You’re the man who always wants 
to uproot himself to see how he’s growing.” 

“ I thought that was the way,” Marmaduke said, 
but he didn’t pursue the subject. He fell silent and 
soon he was sleeping in his chair like a tired child. 
Randal and I watched him again, and as he was not 
drunk I think we both felt that things were better if 
not easier. 


Chapter 15 


e determined to make a literary man of Marma- 



VV duke, or at any rate a free-lance journalist. 
Surely, we agreed—and he agreed—it could be done. 
He was a clever fellow; he didn’t write badly and could 
certainly improve. He might send articles about; start 
a novel, an epic, a play—anything he liked. He took 
up the idea eagerly. We mustn’t expect too much at 
first, but still—Helen began to make penwipers and 
produced enough to last us all for a decade. Marma- 
duke went to Manchester to procure the right sort of 
paper pads, and we all contributed to a new fountain 
pen. “ But where am I to write? ” he said. 

It is a curious fact that I haven’t a study. I am 
a literary man of sorts, but I write on vacant corners 
of tables or on mantelpieces or in my bedroom. I’m 
supposed to have a desk, but everybody uses it. We 
once had a visitor, a lady, who cried out: “ This is 
the most extraordinary household I’ve seen. You are 
literary folk, and the only pen I can find won’t write, 
the blotting-paper’s a disgrace, and you don’t seem 
to know about penwipers ”; this, of course, was before 
Helen’s ministrations, and before fountain pens be¬ 
came so common. We were careless about those mat¬ 
ters, and our friend attributed it to superiority. I’m 
afraid she suspected affectation. 


MARMADUKE 


269 

But here was Marmaduke waiting to make a proper 
start and he must have apparatus; he must have the 
momentum that this would bring. Otherwise nothing 
might occur. He admitted that it would be absurd 
for him to have a study when I hadn’t one—“ And 
what about me?” interjected Randal—but something 
must be done for him; he was not, like me, aloft and 
above material considerations. So the dressing-room 
in which he slept was fitted up into a respectable imita¬ 
tion of a study, and the bed was made to look as near 
a couch as possible. We all regarded the arrange¬ 
ments with satisfaction, and Marmaduke proposed to 
make a start almost immediately. But, by the by, 
a start at what? 

He consulted us all about that. He lived, as he 
said, very much in the public eye; it was a sympa¬ 
thetic public of three. And, of course, we couldn’t 
do anything. With all the sympathy in the world a 
time must come when you tackle your own job, look 
into your own soul, or fly with your own wings. He 
was sociable and he seemed to require constant stimu¬ 
lation. He didn’t know what to write about, though 
he projected ideas. “ Prison experiences are the 
thing,” he said. “ I grasp my nettle.” He recalled 
The Shropshire Lad and The Ballad of Reading Gaol . 
“ But my line,” he said, “ will be prose of an extraor¬ 
dinarily sombre cast.” 

Randal suggested that public and publishers would 
have to be considered, and he agreed that we must 
be practical. What about suburban humours under 
the title “ Our Village ” or “ Our Suburb ” ? Perhaps 


MARMADUKE 


270 

the Herald would take a series of articles on “ Man¬ 
chester Windbags.” He could write something pretty 
stinging. I said that people didn’t want to be stung, 
that they preferred to be tickled, to which he said 
that when your friend was stung it came through to 
you in the form of a tickle. However—the thing was 
to get into touch with a lot of papers and magazines. 
By the by, he hadn’t any large envelopes. 

Poor Marmaduke! We looked on him as on a hen 
that is expected to lay, that ought to lay. He got 
into the way of going up to his room after breakfast, 
when it had been straightened, and sometimes he took 
the newspaper with him. One morning—it was a 
Sunday and Randal was at home—he came down again 
very soon and demanded a hint, a theme, some kind 
of stimulus. We did our best, but didn’t hit upon 
anything inspiring till Randal spoke of an old dispute 
with a friend about the respective merits of Oxford 
and Cambridge and the Cambridge man’s contention 
that his town had the more sinister back-alleys. 
“ That’s the ticket,” cried Marmaduke and was off to 
his room. He did produce a piece of sorts and sug¬ 
gested that the Herald might like to have it. I was 
frowning over it and looked up to see his eagerness 
turning to disappointment. “ It’s full of awful hints,” 
I said. 

He replied with some complacency: “ You see that? 
Well, I suppose art is the avoidance of the specific.” 

“ Do you think a respectable daily paper would take 
this ? ” I said. He entered upon some explanation of 
the difference between immoral and unmoral, to which 


MARMADUKE 


271 


I hardly listened. We did get an article or two into 
the Herald and there was quite a family fuss about 
it. We wanted to believe that the problem was solved 
and that he would go on writing more and more, 
better and better. He was disposed to rest on mod¬ 
erate accomplishments. I dare say they cost him a 
good deal of labour. He was an amateur, an im¬ 
provisor; he didn’t like recasting and revising and 
taking pains; he wanted to be a genius by first inten¬ 
tion. There seemed to be a fair prospect of his mak¬ 
ing about £20 a year. He said that for a talent like 
his it was necessary to wait for inspiration, for the 
appropriate mood. Drudgery, regular habits of writ¬ 
ing were demoralizing. By all means give yourself a 
chance. So he retired to his room to smoke cigarettes, 
with great regularity. Randal and I contended that 
more than this was necessary; that you must control 
your mind to work, meet inspiration half-way, do 
something every day, every hour. 

He came down to us triumphantly. “ Listen to 
this! ” he cried. “ Listen to these sentences: * A charm¬ 
ing damsel with a wealth of magnificent auburn hair' 
—* He reeled against the mantelpiece with a look of 
terror in his eye ’—* The eternal stars maintained their 
perpetual vigil/ What d’you think of those?” he 
said. 

We were puzzled and asked him to read them again. 
Randal said he didn’t see the point, and I asked 
whether we were expected to admire. 

“ Admire!” shouted Marmaduke. “ The point is 
that it’s the sort of rubbish I write when I force 


MARMADUKE 


272 

myself to it. 4 Wealth of magnificent ’—God forgive 
me. 

“ Do you mean to say that these three sentences 
come out of one article you’ve written?” said Randal 
shrewdly. 

44 That doesn’t matter,” Marmaduke said. 44 They 
serve for illustration.” 

44 You’ve concocted them for us, you old humbug,” 
said Randal. 

44 But they’re the kind of thing,” persisted Mar¬ 
maduke. His spirits had fallen. 44 1 suppose I’ve 
failed again,” he said. We hastened to assure him 
that he hadn’t, that he was at the promising start. 

44 Failure, failure, failure! ” he said. 44 What a re¬ 
lief to you all if I disappeared! I look round for 
something to do, some direction to take. And there’s 
only one thing in the world at this moment that has 
any attraction for me.” 

44 What’s that?” I said. 

44 To go out and get drunk.” 

44 And that you can’t do,” said Randal. 

44 Why not? It’s easy. It’s luxuriously easy. I 
know there are reasons against it—decency, honour, 
everything. But what are reasons against a craving 
that overwhelms you? It’s not possible to argue with 
a flood.” 

I said: 44 You shall have a bottle of beer for your 
dinner.” 

44 And a large whisky-and-soda afterwards ? ” he 
said. 44 Ignoble compromise. You’re so material. My 
revolt has a moral element. One gets drunk as a pro- 


MARMADUKE 273 

test against this hard world. It’s an aspiration to a 
better.” 

“ What's up with the world?” Randal said, but I 
think we both felt the hopelessness of our stolidities 
against this flimsy, fantastical creature. 

“ I’m the world,” he said. “ I’m the only world 
I know. And I could turn and rend myself. Yes, 
there is another thing to do. But it’s serious. We 
won’t talk about that.” 

“ What do you mean ? ” I said sternly. 

“ A family man has his responsibilities,” he said. 
“ I’m the father of four children. There won’t be any 
more; don’t fear that. What is best for the family? 
Stay at home, keep sober, work away. I know. I 
also know what I am. I frequently do the right thing. 
I do right oftener than wrong. But I play the fool. 
My justification would be to do splendid things occa¬ 
sionally and so come out right on the average. I 
do make stupendous efforts—ten minutes at a time. 
A thoroughly efficient community would put me in the 
lethal chamber.” 

“ What a colossal egoist you have become! ” said 
Randal. 

“ Always have been,” he said. “ I think we all are, 
but I’m not canny about it. Yet I have impulses. The 
children—these four babes—will-” 

“ Must we call in Helen to hear this ? ” said Randal. 
I perceived a change in Randal. He was losing pa¬ 
tience. 

“ Ah, Helen! ” Marmaduke said. “ Dare I speak 
of Helen? You say I’m an egoist. Well, the egoist 



274 


MARMADUKE 


does bare his soul. He’s not like you close self-con¬ 
tained people. You must be a boiling mass of egoism 
within. I have my volcanic vents. Yes; do you know, 
I sometimes think that Helen culminated when I went 
to prison. Her steadfastness, her loyalty. It was a 
great episode. And she goes on and on. That’s the 
damnable thing about this world: it continues after 
you’ve got things right; it’s all anti-climax. I’m afraid 
of Helen. What is behind that wonderful mask? Is 
she infinitely tolerant? Will the facade disintegrate 
slowly or crack suddenly? I suppose she has a kind 
of affection for me. I’m one of her children now. 
She wants to take pride in me as a brilliant boy. I 
try her too much, and yet I shall try her more.” 

“Why?” said Randal. “What you see you can 
prevent.” 

“ What you see is what is there,” he said. 

“ What particular crime do you mean ? ” 

“ You want it in plain terms ? ” said Marmaduke. 
“ I’ll tell you what I see. I shall have drinking bouts. 
I may run after women. I shall insult and disgust you 
all. I shall fail and fail. I shall be a bad example 
to my children—a spectacle for their scorn. I shall 
taint their lives. Perhaps they are tainted already for 
they are partly me. I don’t want to harm them. I 
should like to redeem—I like the idea of redemption. 
To clear off all accumulations in one gigantic effort! ” 
“ The chance doesn’t come in real life,” said Ran¬ 
dal. “ You’d better make up your mind for a steady 
spell of doing your best.” 

“ Unfortunately I’ve clear sight,” said Marmaduke. 


MARMADUKE 


275 

“ Then if you have no will of your own you must 
do as you are told,” said Randal. 

“Ah! You begin to show your teeth. At last.” 

“ Put yourself in our place/' I said. “ What would 
you do ? ” 

He waved that aside. “ Coercion! In what form ? 
Will you drag me out of pubs? ” 

“ I wouldn’t stop at that,” Randal said. 

“ But a scandal would be worse for you than for 
me. 

“ About equal.” 

“For Helen?” 

“ Doesn’t it strike you that the scandal’s there al¬ 
ready ? ” 

“ The reactions on Helen will be very curious,” said 
Marmaduke. 

“ You try our patience very far,” said Randal. 

“ I’m coming up against something hard again, am 
I?” said Marmaduke. “My life is alternately too 
soft and too hard. I don’t choose the hard things, 
but perhaps you forget that I’ve endured more than 
any of you. The way of transgressors is hard. We’re 
the martyrs. Yes, I suppose it’s childish to look for 
a first-rate job in self-sacrifice—something that would 
be all over in a moment. There’s suicide—but to 
threaten that is bad form.” 

“Suicide?” I cried. 

“ Well, naturally, it crosses my mind sometimes. 
What kind of a man is he who never thinks of sui¬ 
cide? When you read of some poor devil who tried 
to simplify things that way you say to yourself: What 


MARMADUKE 


276 

should I have done—given those circumstances? I 
always put it to myself so. Don’t you? ” 

Randal shrugged impatiently and Marmaduke went 
on: “ Of course one speculates about nice ways of 
doing it and it’s hard to find one. An overdose of a 
narcotic? That seems most civilized, but we’re get¬ 
ting soft. The high Roman way must have been diffi¬ 
cult, and gas-pipes are lower-middle class. There’s 
always that awkward moment when you wish you 
hadn’t done it.” 

“ What should make you think of suicide? ” I said. 

“ Well,” Marmaduke said, “ there’s a certain sym¬ 
metry about the idea. And you break off from the 
feast. You don’t drink and gorge till you fall under 
the table.” 

“ It’s difficult to respect you, to tolerate you,” cried 
Randal, “ when you talk like this. Is it fair to us ? 
Is it fair to Helen?” 

“ What ? ” said Helen. She had entered quietly. 


Chapter 16 


T suppose we looked like conspirators. Helen waited 
for an answer and we were not quite sure what 
she had heard. 

“ Our usual pastime of baiting poor Marmaduke,” 
I said with a guilty lightness, and she turned to Ran¬ 
dal with “ What is it ? ” 

“ It was nothing of importance,” said he. 

“ But it was,” she said. “ You don’t speak like 
that for nothing.” She looked at Marmaduke. 
“ Please! ” she said. 

“ We were discussing,” he said, “ in an abstract 
way the question of suicide.” 

“ Why should that not be fair to me ? ” she said. 

“ You had better ask Randal,” said Marmaduke. 
“ I might have asked him the same question.” 

“ Randal?” 

“ Well,” said Randal, “ I protested because he makes 
a grave matter into a light one. It was, as he says, 
an abstract discussion, but I didn’t like the way. Don’t 
imagine that we were talking of any one in partic¬ 
ular.” 

I said: “ You know by this time, Helen, that he has 
a certain rashness of tongue.” 

She looked from one to the other of us as we 
spoke. Then she concentrated on Marmaduke. “ I 
277 


MARMADUKE 


278 

am not to be left out,” she said, “ I am not a fool. 
Of course I know that you must have thought of it.” 

I think we were all startled. Marmaduke looked 
at her quickly and then I met his inquiring eyes. 

“ So there is no need to leave me out,” said Helen. 
“ This is altogether too serious, too portentous,” I 
said. “ Every man thinks of suicide at some time. 
Not Marmaduke more than another. We’re not keep¬ 
ing anything back, really.” 

“ But Marmaduke is pushed to it two ways,” said 
Helen. “If we are unkind to him he thinks: Why 
should I live? And if we are kind: Why should I live 
to be a burden to them ? ” 

“ Are we unkind to him ? ” said Randal. 

“ No, no, no,” said Marmaduke. “ You’re all won¬ 
derfully lenient to me. I fail and fail and you all 
stand round, taking the most intelligent interest. Helen 
has been my stay and comfort. She has been watch¬ 
ing me and wondering whether I shall commit sui¬ 
cide. How interesting that is! ” 

I cried out in protest and yet she had surprised 
me. Marmaduke said to her directly, intimately: 
“ Would that be the best way out for me? ” 

“ Oh, no! ” she said, but she said it gently. 

“ What is in your mind ? ” said Marmaduke. 

“ I am thinking,” she said, “ that you are not the 
only one; that you don’t come first.” 

“ Ah! ” said he, “ the tigress and her cubs.” 

She looked at him steadily: “ They come first,” 
she said. 


MARMADUKE 


279 


“ Yes, I see that,” said he. “ I used to come first. 
I don’t know how long it has been an illusion, but it 
used to be a kind of support to me. All those years 
I thought of you with emotion. I’ve thought of you 
romantically—in prison, in my cell, I mean. Yes, 
and a staunch, affectionate woman. You’ve always 
made allowances for me. You haven’t demanded too 
much. We’ve lived a life of a sort. Now—but sup¬ 
pose this: Suppose that I had been a capital, cheerful 
person who never did wrong, would it have made the 
difference? Or if I had kept on being a hero of ro¬ 
mance? For wasn’t I that once? You found strange¬ 
ness and beauty in me, Helen. Yes, you did. To 
marry me was a splendid adventure. I must believe 
that. Now—of course I understand. We fall away, 
we men—husbands, lovers. We become part of the 
furniture. It simplifies it for you that I’m a bit of 
a scoundrel. And yet, poor Helen, poor woman, the 
time must come when you won’t come first with them. 
You’ll fall away in your turn. The implacable march 
of events. You should have stuck to me. The old 
folk come together again when the children have gone. 
We might have been faithful old dodderers.” 

Helen listened to him patiently. Randal and I re¬ 
mained silent. 

“ They come first,” said Marmaduke harshly. 
“ What’s the practical point ? ” 

She didn’t speak and he went on: “ I’m a bad father ? 
To be kept out of their way? Have I done them 
any harm? After all, I have contributed a certain 


28 o 


MARMADUKE 


gaiety, a sparkle. The value of the solid virtues is 
exaggerated. But I'm becoming trivial. That’s the 
worst of my style; I slip into the trivial.” 

He left the room, turning at the door to give us 
these assurances: “ I shall not get drunk—to-day. I 
shall not commit suicide this week.” 

We sat silent for some time. It wasn’t easy to say 
anything illuminating, and we shrank from the big 
platitudes which might have been opportune. I had 
on my tongue a sentence beginning: Is it possible that 
he might be driven—but it didn’t seem helpful to utter 
it. I looked at Helen covertly. She had gone through 
that subtle and great change from the bride to the 
mother and she was capable now, it might be, of 
fanaticism for her children. She was a mysterious 
person, but I could tell her, slightingly, that she was 
merely inarticulate. Wives who have children change, 
and there isn’t a corresponding change in the husbands; 
they may, if they are good fellows, become the big 
boys of the family. Marmaduke accomplished this in 
part and occasionally; he saw a good deal of the chil¬ 
dren, he romped a little with them, discussed more; 
he invented whimsical relations, cultivated audacities. 
But, all the time, it was his own life that he was 
living. 

And what, as Marmaduke said, was the practical 
point? Clearly he was not the ideal father, but could 
she really believe that he would corrupt his children? 
Behave yourself, she might say. Hands off those 
precious children or—or what? He is a sensitive man 
and you can play on his nerves. I have fancies, I 


MARMADUKE 


281 


suppose it is part of my work to give fancies their 
chance. Well, then, might not a terrible drama de¬ 
velop ? 

I addressed myself to Helen. What was in her 
mind? I suggested that we must be very careful with 
Marmaduke; that he mustn’t be driven to desperation. 
Where are we heading? What effect would it have 
on him to know that this idea of suicide had been 
present in her mind? And that it could remain there 
without causing any conspicuous disturbance? 

“ You may have ceased to love him,” I began. 

“ I have not ceased to love him,” she said. And 
then, thoughtfully, “ I think not.” 

“To me,” I said, “ Marmaduke’s death would be 
a terrible misfortune. Would it not be so to you?” 

My voice, I realized, had the tone of accusation. 
She was shaken, she hastened to agree. She was al¬ 
most normal, almost reassuring. And yet I didn’t 
understand her. She was inarticulate, and can the 
inarticulate be intellectually honest ? Hardly to a high 
degree. 

She went away to find Marmaduke; to reason with 
him, I suppose, to scout that idea of suicide, to make 
whatever concession of affection and tenderness was 
possible. Randal and I, left together, didn’t feel it 
necessary to regard the talk of suicide very seriously. 
Randal, indeed, was contemptuous; he didn’t believe 
in it at all. I found myself fearing Randal’s harsh¬ 
ness—or, should I say, his justice? I was old, tired, 
kind, ready to muddle on. I thought that I could make 
a case for Marmaduke yet; I suppose it would be his 


282 


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own case considerably pruned. “ And isn’t he better 
than the conventional stodgy father ? ” X put it to 
Randal, to the liberal, clear-sighted Randal. He said: 
“ The question is what he’ll be presently.” And I 
could see him as a perpetual dreary problem. Doubt¬ 
less his descent, his degradation, would be mitigated 
by the vivacity of his own comments. 

Eyeing me curiously, Randal said: “ I think the 
question is what’s best for Helen.” And Randal, I 
see, has it in his mind that I—even I—am disposed 
to think of Helen second. Miserably I ask myself 
if I am capable of a deep disloyalty. Values are 
changing. And must you not think first of the most 
unfortunate one? 

Randal is for strong measures if it must be. What 
measures? If Marmaduke won’t behave himself he 
must be turned out. I think that severity to his friend 
would hurt Randal terribly, and I admire his ruthless¬ 
ness of the clear brain. I can’t face that idea of turn¬ 
ing Marmaduke out, I can’t feel it to be right. Helen 
would be torn two ways, I suppose; in any struggle 
the children would prevail. I suppose I hold the key 
to the economic position. 

We were not at a desperate pass yet, but nothing, 
Randal said, could prevent the position going worse. 
I put it to him plainly that if we drove Marmaduke 
too far he might cut his throat, and Randal said: 
“We must face that.” These young people have a 
passion for facing things. They are enamoured of 
clear thinking, and so every problem must be faced 
and solved. They would not have them peter out; 


MARMADUKE 


283 

it is “ woolly ” to let sleeping dogs lie. Then Randal 
said: “ He’s about as likely to cut his throat as Hamlet 
was.” 

And looking out of the window, we saw Marma- 
duke, in his old garden coat, industriously, virtuously 
hoeing. Problem? It appeared that there wasn’t a 
problem, or, at any rate, that some kind of second- 
rate solution was possible. It may not be exhilarating 
for middle-class children to have a handy-man for a 
father, but that’s better than a suicide. How simple 
all would be if Marmaduke could be content with 
a quiet life on the land—on about half an acre of 
land! But of course it couldn’t be. 


Chapter 17 


here was some perversity in his attitude to the 



-*■ children; he puzzled them with his scepticisms 
and audacities. Helen had brought them up straitly. 
She was afraid to stray beyond certain of the safe 
conventions, for she hadn’t a strong faith in herself 
nor in a world without surveillance. Marmaduke re¬ 
volted weakly and discursively. He wanted them to 
discuss their Jesus with him, and said that he was 
ready to learn from babes and sucklings. Helen was 
uneasy and he became ironical with her. He talked 
about intellectual honesty almost heavily. “ Don’t let 
us make these children secretive,” he said. “ Don’t 
make sham mystics of them. Let them formulate this 
Jesus; let’s go into it with them.” 

Helen was uneasy, she was even alarmed. She 
didn’t want intellectual honesty, she wanted customary 
pieties. I was present one day when Marmaduke was 
questioning and stimulating little Randy, and Helen 
came in. She did betray some suspicion, and Randy, 
quick to appreciate her mood, became very difficult 
with his father. To some question he said: “ Perhaps 
it is better not to talk about this.” 

“ You see ? You hear ? ” cried Marmaduke. “ They 
are trained to dishonesty. They turn against me.” 

And Helen’s reply to that was: “You shall not 
corrupt them.” 


284 


MARMADUKE 


285 

They flashed these words at one another and they 
were, it seemed to me, far in excess of the situation. 
And yet Marmaduke went farther; in his exaspera¬ 
tion he said to Helen: “ You are too stupid to be hon¬ 
est.” It was dreadful. Everything seemed shaken. 
And Marmaduke, trembling, buried his face in his 
hands. He tried to control his sobs, he muttered 
“ Helen! Helen! ” and then: “ I shouldn’t have said 
that. I don’t believe it. I don’t mean it. I tell you 
it was a horrible suggestion that came to me. I couldn’t 
help saying it. Randy, I was tempted by the devil.” 
And Randy, smug little prig, said—looking at his 
mother, currying favour with his mother—“ You 
mustn’t say wicked things.” Marmaduke laughed bit¬ 
terly; it was hardly laughter, but rather a kind of 
crowing. The strange thing is that I was on his side. 
Helen took Randy away with her and I felt that she 
should have said something kind to Marmaduke. That 
she didn’t was the most serious thing of all. Incred¬ 
ulously I watched her go out. Marmaduke, swift to 
perceive, interpret, infer, touched my arm. a No, no, 
no,” he said. “ Don’t blame her. It’s I, it’s all my 
fault. And now I come between you. It’s time to 
give in, it’s time to go.” 

I was feebly deprecating; I really hadn’t much fault 
to find with him over this. But I appealed to him 
to be generous with Helen and he was eagerly con¬ 
trite. I said: “You make a fuss about things you 
really don’t care about.” He wouldn’t have this. “ I’m 
a man of moods, of course,” he said, “ but I do care 
about things in my own way, I come back to them. 


. 286 


MARMADUKE 


I don’t just go on stodging. About those kids and 
Jesus now—oh, but let’s forget that.” 

Marmaduke hadn’t a settled money allowance. I 
proposed it, but he waved it aside. He didn’t like fixed 
conditions. He said it would be impossible to fix a 
salary for a bootboy who didn’t clean the boots. He 
asked me for money when he wanted it, and he wasn’t 
unconscionable. One day, rather to my surprise, he 
asked me for five pounds and said he had a scheme. 
It was merely to take the three elder children to see 
“ Peter Pan.” He gave them lunch and tea hand¬ 
somely, and when he came home with them he wasn’t 
quite sober. I can’t excuse it; there isn’t an excuse; 
he set me speculating on that idea of possession by the 
devil. He played with ideas of duality, of faith that 
had nothing to do with works, of a spirit that wouldn’t 
take the body seriously. Randy, watching him, puz¬ 
zled, asked me why Daddy talked so queerly; I said 
that clever men had kinds of fun that boys didn’t 
understand. He nodded thoughtfully. “ But Mother 
is better than Daddy whatever she says ? ” It was 
hardly an interrogation. Helen had been generous, 
the trouble had blown over, one tried to think of it 
as merely a gust of words. I didn’t know what had 
passed between them. He could never give her what 
now she so much wanted—safety, stability, the proper 
brand of parental virtues. 

Marmaduke said he wanted to take Randy to “ Ham¬ 
let ”; he wanted to see the effect of it on a young 
mind. With mock humility he asked me if I had 
any objection to his talking to Randy about Shake- 


MARMADUKE 


287 

speare. Or would I consider it a reasonable compro¬ 
mise? “You know, Randy,” he said, “most of us 
are a bit like Hamlet.” 

“Are you?” said Randy. 

“ Particularly me. Pm him, sometimes.” 

“ How?” 

“ You see, Hamlet wanted to do things and he never 
got them done.” 

“ Why didn’t he ? ” 

“Ah! That’s it: the difference between doing a 
thing and not doing it. That’s Hamlet.” 

“ Why couldn’t he do it ? ” 

“ He had cause and will and strength and means,” 
cried Marmaduke, “ and he just went on talking— 
like me.” 

“ What did he want to do ? ” said Randy. 

“ To kill his stepfather.” 

“ That’s wicked.” 

“ Not for him. Goodness isn’t the same for every¬ 
body.” 

“ Have you a goodness of your own ? ” 

“ I wonder if that’s it,” said Marmaduke. 

“ E)o you want to kill somebody?” said Randy. 

“ There’s one person I might kill some day,” said 
Marmaduke. 

“ Stop! ” I said. “ This won’t do.” 

I met Randy’s horrified eyes. “ Is Daddy wicked? ” 
he said. 

“ No,” I said, “ but he’s rather naughty sometimes 
in saying things he doesn’t mean. I understand him; 
but it’s puzzling for little boys.” 


238 


MARMADUKE 


Marmaduke began sullenly, “ I ought to do things, 
I can do them, I want to do them, and I don’t do 
them.” 

He ended querulously, his voice sharpened to a cry, 
he shook his fist in the air. Randy stared at him, 
edging away. Marmaduke said to me: “ He is alien¬ 
ated from me. I have lost him.” 

We came to a bad time. Randal tried his forcible 
methods; he penetrated to bars, he dragged Marma¬ 
duke out of them. It was a public scandal. I don’t 
know how far the physical struggle went; Randal hated 
to talk about it. And then the two would behave to 
one another with sad courtesy, they groped after their 
old friendship, they made concessions, they were both 
touchingly magnanimous. Yes, I watched it with pain 
and admiration. Of course I made the obvious re¬ 
monstrances with Marmaduke and he was disarmingly 
in agreement. I suppose I should have towered over 
him compellingly. I grow old and soft and sympa¬ 
thetic, I see things too clearly, I yield too readily to 
the hopeless, the immovable. 

Yet Marmaduke did annoy me. We were all in 
league against him, to help him. I got tired of his 
dark references to Sydney Carton, of his wild warn¬ 
ings. The emotional scene became a little jaded. 
Marmaduke was guilty of repetition. Half-drunk, he 
would discourse to me of the Fates closing round 
him: the Fates in the forms of devoted friends, a 
loving wife, charming children. “ Helen,” he says, 
“ is like one of those creatures in a popular science 
book—ants are they? Bees? They carry on their 


MARMADUKE 


289 


allotted work, they are a kind of petite vitesse in evo¬ 
lution. She’s all instinctive, she’s a mother, she’s pre- 
Ibsen. I’m the useless male that should be put out of 
the way.” 

According to my mood I replied to him in the vein 
of “ My poor boy,” or of “ You damned young fool.” 
And he reverted with a sort of politeness to our good¬ 
ness to him, our long-suffering. Sometimes it had 
emotion in it, sometimes it was little more than a 
polite formula. One tired of it. I got tired of hear¬ 
ing that Helen is not romantic, that she’s like the 
Venus of Milo, that she lacks sinfulness. I didn’t like 
to suggest to Marmaduke that he was becoming a 
bore; any hint of that made him wince. I believed 
that he was capable of sacrificing himself for his 
children, but that Helen should stimulate him to it 
would rouse his resentment. And yet one day he said 
to me: “ Rather fine, you know, Helen’s throwing me 
over like this. It’s like Falstaff and Prince Henry 
—‘ I know thee not, old man. Fall to thy prayers.’ 
Austere fellow, Shakespeare. I mean he could hit 
the note. Why! Helen and I once-” 

“ Ridiculous analogy,” I said. “ Helen has never 
thrown you over.” 

“ No more than she had to do,” he said. “ I’ve no 
complaints to make.” 

One night I lay awake in my bed thinking backward 
and forward, wishing for sleep, wishing for the morn¬ 
ing light. Marmaduke slept in the room above me 
and I heard him moving about. I became alert for 
I was perpetually on the verge of anxiety. He seemed 


290 


MARMADUKE 


to be pacing about and I couldn’t divine any inten¬ 
tion in his movements. At last I felt that I must go 
up and see what he was doing; after delay and delay 
I put on my dressing-gown hastily and went to him. 
He didn’t reply to my gentle tapping and so I turned 
the handle and looked in. He seemed to be watching 
the door and he saw me at once. He hadn’t put on 
a dressing-gown though it was a cold night. He took 
my arm and drew me into the room. He didn’t wait 
for any explanations or give any. “ It can’t go on,” 
he said eagerly. “ I see that it’s quite impossible.” 
I insisted that he should put on slippers and dressing- 
gown, and, as I helped him into this, he continued: 
“ In the night I see things clearly. I couldn’t rest. 
I must bring this to an end.” 

“ My dear boy,” I said, “ what are you talking 
about? Bring what to an end?” 

“ You’re too much on my side,” he said. “ The 
dreadful thing is that I’m alienating you from Helen; 
Randal too; I’m wrecking the whole thing. Ah, those 
old days! I used to watch you and Helen jealously. 
You were my only rival. I feared none but you. 
And I broke in upon it, though I saw how beautiful 
it was. You and Helen. Oh, I know, I understood 
more than you thought. It had to be. I knew that, 
and I saw that you knew it. You must fight for your¬ 
self sometimes. And I gave Helen what you couldn’t. 
She had her excursion into romance. We’ve lived 
that down. What are we to do—we men who can 
be lovers and are incapable as husbands? The world 
changes and you steadfast people wouldn’t have it so. 


MARMADUKE 


291 

The children came, and it was for me to become the 
faithful father, the family man. I’m not made that 
way. I can be affectionate—at times. I can sacrifice. 
I tell you I can sacrifice. If I fail in everything else, 
I won’t in that. I’ve spoilt everything.” 

I said: “ No, no. You’ve helped to make my life 
extraordinarily interesting.” 

“ My dear man,” he cried, “ what nonsense you 
talk! Interesting! I bring you miseries—agonies— 
and you would take them blandly, call them interest¬ 
ing. This is affectation, isn’t it ? ” 

“ You’ll get your effect yet,” I said. “ You are 
getting it ? ” 

Puzzled, incredulous, he said: “Whatever do you 
mean? ” 

What did I mean? I was taking refuge in artistic 
jargon. Gallantly I attempted to rationalize it. I 
told him of a novel I reviewed, and as one read it 
appeared that it was failing obviously. There may 
be an element of despicable relief to the reviewer in 
this; it makes his job a simple one. But here I began 
to perceive that it wasn’t all futility: much was wrong, 
but I said to myself: “Confound this fellow! He’s 
getting his effect after all.” It may not be my way, 
it may not be the world’s way, but he’s saving his 
own soul or half-saving it; he’s being interesting.” 

“ Did he get that effect in a flash ? ” said Marma- 
duke. “Was it a sudden inspiration? Did he unex¬ 
pectedly save his bacon ? But you’re leading me away. 
You’re distracting me, as you do a child, with stories. 
What comfort is there for me in all this? I shall 


292 


MARMADUKE 


get a lot of effects, I dare say, and I shall give you 
some. Of course there’s a certain interest in viewing 
one’s own decline. You may make some attempt to 
save the ship, but at last you push off, rest on your 
oars, watch her burn and sink. It’s amusing to re¬ 
gard yourself as a spectacle. Well, you’ve worked 
me round to the trivial, the grandiose. I was ready 
to be serious with you.” 

“ Will you make me a promise? ” I said. 

“ Who am I to make promises ? ” he said bitterly. 

“ Your promise is good enough for me.” 

“ I don’t know that there’s much need for a prom¬ 
ise,” he said. “ I’ve no intention of cutting my throat 
or anything of that kind. Why must I promise? I 
hate promising.” 

And then there was a knock at the door and Helen 
came in. I tried not to feel a shamefaced conspirator 
before her, but I didn’t know what to say, how to 
go on. I said something feeble about sleeplessness; 
timorously I indicated the possibilities of evasion. 
Helen said: “What is it? What are you doing?” 

Marmaduke took her arm and led her to a seat on 
the bed. “ It’s the perpetual discussion,” he said. 
And then: “ Soon or late, Helen, we must fail, we 
must disappear. When that time comes don’t think 
that all which went before is lost. We’ve had that, 
we’ve been together, we’ve had good times. Not all 
you deserve, my poor girl. Don’t think of me as 
just a bad lot. Remember our best ”—she breathed 
a faint “ Yes, yes ”—“ Everything ends and we’ve 
come to the end.” 


MARMADUKE 


293 


They sat together hand in hand. It appeared that 
she had nothing to propose, no question to ask. I 
said: “ Have you some practical step in your mind?” 
My thoughts were straying vaguely to the colonies; 
inconvenient, incompetent people are shipped off to the 
colonies. 

He said: “ I must think about that,” and I suppose 
that both Helen and I felt that this was all in a piece 
with his vacillations and half-intentions, that things 
would go on as they were and worse. But there is 
an idealism of the night and we sat there vaguely in 
sympathy, shivering a little, reluctant to part, out of 
love with the garish day. Marmaduke, bolder and 
more impressionable than we, quoted “ Let us but love 
each other,” and my mind travelled back to the old 
days of his crime when we three were united in affec¬ 
tion. Was it a final appeal? Helen was gentle, in¬ 
articulate, inscrutable. He turned to look at her and 
then, whimsically, he looked at me and quoted again, 
this time from my old sonnet, “ Straining a little 
warmth from dying fires.” That was it; that was all. 

Helen and he parted tenderly and I saw in this the 
refinements of courtesy, some wistfulness over the 
past. I went downstairs after her. She nodded to me 
and went into the room where Randy and Dick slept 
together. Turning I saw Marmaduke at the head of 
the stairs looking down. I waved my hand to him. 
Then I thought of telling him to go into the boys’ 
room after her. One would stave off calamity with 
little dodges and precautions. But now the hopeless¬ 
ness, the negation of the night had descended upon me. 


Chapter 18 

M armaduke asked me for the loan of a hundred 
pounds and I stared at him, wondering whether 
he was serious. I said “ What for ? ” and he said, 
“ Well, fifty then,” as though the reduction to half 
would serve for an answer. At last he said: “ I want 
it to go away with,” and I said “ Go away? Where? 
For how long? Why?” 

“ I believe I mean to go away for ever,” he said. 
** I don’t like to talk big about it because I have just 
that slight fear that I might come creeping back. I 
don’t think I should, but how can you know what 
you’ll do when you go out into the unknown? I 
should have gone away without saying anything, but 
you can’t disappear comfortably without a bit of 
money. You think that when the money’s gone I 
shall come back. I think not; if I could be sure of 
anything I should be sure not. And yet I suppose 
I shall sink rapidly, I shan’t last long. It’s a kind 
of suicide.” 

“ I won’t give you a penny for such a purpose,” I 
said. 

“ I shall be sorry to lose you,” he said, “ but we 
can’t go together.” 

“ You can’t go alone,” I said. 

“ Alone! That’s it,” he said. “ I’m going to be 
294 


MARMADUKE 


295 

alone. It won’t be the first time. I’ve got a thread 
of tenacity, I believe. It will be interesting to find 
out more about that.” 

“ What can you do? How will you live? ” I cried. 

It isn’t necessary to live. That’s the point.” 

“ You are not serious.” 

“ For once, I am serious.” 

“ You would leave ”—and I hesitated—“ your chil¬ 
dren?” 

“ They would turn against me.” 

“ Whose fault is that ? ” 

“Fault? Fault?” he said. “What’s the good of 
talking about fault ? ” 

He irritated me. “ Try to help us,” I said. “ Do 
your part.” 

“You are right,” said he; “we are agreed.” 

“ We’ll find a billet for you yet.” 

“ That’s all over.” 

“ But what do you mean to do ? ” 

“ Sink, die, disappear. If I make my fortune I’ll 
come back.” 

“ I can’t make much of this kind of talk,” I said. 

“ And yet you’re a patient man, you’re a good 
friend. I’m always conscious of that. I seem to take 
you for granted, but I think about you in the night. 
I’m shy and I never say to you the things I make up 
then—beautiful speeches of gratitude. I could be sen¬ 
timental with you. Good friend. Old friend. I 
haven’t much left. There are times when I feel that 
I want you to draw your breath in pain telling my 
story. Investigating myself o’ nights I come on queer 


MARMADUKE 


296 

vanities and little pockets of pride. You don’t always 
remember what I’ve done. I’ve done five years. And 
now I go out into the void—with a melodramatic ges¬ 
ture.” 

“ Don’t talk nonsense,” I said. “ You annoy me.” 

“ Well,” he said, “ I suppose it must be the usual 
five pounds.” 

I gave him a cheque for it upon our local bank as 
usual. He glanced at it and put it in his pocket. 
“ There’s a thing I want to say to you,” he said. “ All 
these years Helen has been your ideal of faithfulness. 
I know that. She has been staunch to me. And now 
you’re a little uneasy. She has every reason to fall 
away from me, you think, and yet—she’s staunch 
where she should be staunch. She has her children. 
It’s natural, it’s right. I suppose I’m not a good 
father. I’m not steadily affectionate. They touch my 
emotions sometimes and then I want to experiment 
with them. I might do them harm. There’s some¬ 
thing to be said for a safe old world. I’ve not been 
a great success. But the point is—the point—I had 
a point—yes, it is that Helen’s all right. She’s all 
right. I have no resentments. None. It’s all grati¬ 
tude to her, to Randal, to you. I make my acknowl¬ 
edgments. I don’t know how you’ve stood me all this 
time.” 

He left me wondering, meditating; I had cause 
enough to mistrust him, but he seemed to mean more 
than usual. 

That afternoon Mr. Judson, the Manager of our 
branch of the bank, called to see me. He was an un- 


MARMADUKE 


297 


distinguished, hesitating little man and now he was 
apologetic and embarrassed. He fumbled in his pocket 
and produced my cheque. He had cashed it this morn¬ 
ing, he said, but he had been uneasy. He had had a 
momentary doubt; he muttered something about un¬ 
usual circumstances, he thought he ought to see me. 
He handed me the cheque. “ I suppose this is all 
right ? ” he said. “ It is a larger amount than usual 
and—you will pardon me—examination through a 
magnifying glass—the course of my duty—I really 
didn’t know what-” 

It was the cheque I had given to Marmaduke, but 
it was for fifty pounds. It was a shock to me, but 
my mind moved quickly. I said: “ Is anything wrong ? 
I thought I had more than that in the bank.” 

He gasped. He was relieved, but more embarrassed 
than ever. “ Perfectly right,” he said. “ Perfectly. 
I am sorry to have troubled you.” 

He was ready to go but I thought it could hardly 
be left there. “ What is the point? ” I said. 

“ Oh! ” he said, with a ludicrous attempt at light¬ 
ness. “ It’s a trifle. I just wished to suggest—the 
writing on the cheque is a little indistinct—that is to 
say ”—he stared at the cheque which was now in his 
hand—“ it’s strange.” 

I took it again. “ I see, I see,” I said. “ You re 
very observant, Mr. Judson. You’ve caught me. I 
was making this out for five pounds as usual, forget¬ 
ting that it was for a special purpose, and I thought 
I could alter my five into fifty all right. You’re too 
sharp for me. What one will do to save twopence! ” 



MARMADUKE 


298 

He was still further relieved. He chuckled. “ The 
alteration from five to fifty is the easiest that can 
be made/’ he said. “ We have to keep our eyes open. 
You’ll notice that the nought, too, has just a suspicion 
of being squeezed in. It’s best to be careful. In case 
of forgery ”—he stopped and went very pink—“ I 
mean t’say, you’ll understand that it’s my duty to point 
these things out.” 

I agreed heartily. I had the satisfaction of feeling 
that I was a glib and accomplished liar. I was sorry 
for the poor man and pleased that I had been able to 
relieve his mind. I fancy he had had a suspicion 
at once and hadn’t the pluck to act on it; he must 
have spent some miserable hours of indecision. Now 
he was almost cheerful. He hoped I should not think 
him officious. I said I thought he had done exactly 
right, that I was greatly obliged to him and would 
be very careful in future. We parted with much affa¬ 
bility. 

I sat down heavily in a chair in the sitting-room. 
It was a tremendous, an inexplicable blow. Marma- 
duke had been very much his usual self at lunch. I 
had had the fancy that he was mellowing; to the chil¬ 
dren he had been more tender than ironic. At the 
end of the meal he had held open the door for Helen 
and he stood for a moment looking after her. Trifles 
became significant. Where was he? 

He wasn’t in the house nor in the garden. I made 
surreptitious investigations which included hat pegs. 
He had gone out. He didn’t come back to tea and 
that, though unusual, was not extraordinary. Helen 


MARMADUKE 


299 


was placid among her clamorous children, permitting 
a degree of liberty, ruling them. Randal came home 
and, as usual, looked round for Marmaduke whose 
absence always made him uneasy. I said I hadn’t 
seen him since lunch, and Randal frowned over that 
though, of course, the public-houses wouldn’t be open. 
I felt that loyalty to our understanding might demand 
that I should tell him about the fifty pounds, but I 
was irresolute, sensitive to what he might say. Faint 
resentments that I couldn’t justify or rationalize were 
growing against Randal and Helen. I’ve felt some¬ 
times that I’m not strong enough, hard enough for 
the life that matters. I’ve taken pride sometimes in 
the ruthless attitude and it’s easy enough to be ruth¬ 
less on the general proposition; when the man or 
woman is close to you it’s another thing. And I had 
become intimate with Marmaduke. I had almost 
ceased to struggle against him. His faults and weak¬ 
nesses were not all. I had moments when I was ready 
to espouse his cause, accept his unuttered plea, a plea, 
if not of justification, of immense mitigations. 

But this forgery! How strange that was! To do 
it again, to do it against me! Ought I to renounce 
him, to cast him into the outer darkness with hearty 
curses? One has reactions and I was indignant. Yet 
I wanted to know more, I wanted to understand. Only 
this morning he had been a serious person who couldn’t 
be ignored. I didn’t want to tell Randal yet, but he 
was my ally in this and I aspired to comradeship with 
him in our common life. 

We grew anxious. Presently Randal went out and 


300 


MARMADUKE 


I knew he was going to make a round of the public- 
houses. He detested it and I admired his faithfulness 
to his friend. I thought of offering to go with him 
but I felt that the dreary work would be useless; and 
yet I couldn’t tell Randal. I thought of him going 
doggedly from one bar or taproom to another, looking 
round, inquiring, not sparing himself. Oh, Randal 
was a great fellow; I had a fleeting thought of Randal 
beaten and desolate, of Randal somehow in Marma- 
duke’s place. One has a surge of pity sometimes for 
the man who is strong and sure. Some day he must 
come down, he must fail like the rest of us. 

I had seen Randal’s friendship for Marmaduke as 
very magnanimous, very beautiful. And now it was 
marred by impatience, disappointment, the inevitable 
reactions. You couldn’t reasonably expect any one to 
stand Marmaduke, to go on standing him; he saw 
that himself. Randal was dogged in his friendship 
now, and I think that without doggedness the world 
is lost. He returned with empty hands from his ex¬ 
cursion to the public-house. We had dinner almost 
silently. Helen was grave and calm and I couldn’t 
estimate the tenor of her thoughts. We went about 
our ordinary occupations; Helen was at her perpetual 
sewing and darning, while Randal and I read inter¬ 
mittently. At about io o’clock, a note was handed 
to me. It had been brought from the station by the 
out-porter, said the maid. I opened it and glanced 
hastily down the page. “ Get the man. Bring him 
back,” I said to Randal, who rushed out and pres¬ 
ently returned with old Sam Tidd, the porter. He 


MARMADUKE 


301 


could not tell us much. Mr. Abney had gone by the 
3.18, carrying a bag. He had told Tidd to deliver 
the note at 10 o’clock and it had been three minutes 
late, but that was because he met Mr. Patterson and 
had taken his instructions about luggage for the 8.57 
in the morning. But for that Tidd would have de¬ 
livered the note at 10 sharp. Yes, Mr. Abney had 
paid him. 

I resisted a ridiculous inclination to ask whether 
Mr. Abney looked cheerful. 

While Randal was pursuing Tidd, Helen and I sat 
silent. She looked at the note in my hand and waited 
while I made another and less casual inspection of it. 
She was not incurious but her characteristic reticence 
made for patience. I was secretly agitated. When 
Tidd had left us I began to read the letter again. 
With a slight impatience in her voice she said: “ Has 
he gone? ” I said: “ Yes, Marmaduke has gone.” To 
be silent any longer wasn’t fair to them, but I felt 
sadly unequal to discussion. Helen held out her hand 
for the letter, but I hadn’t made up my mind about 
that. This was addressed to me. I said: “ He will 
write to you,” though Marmaduke had not said so. 
Then, after a pause, I said: “ I don’t want to show 
you this.” She drew back her hand and waited. 

“ He has gone,” I said. “ It’s impossible to say 
exactly what that means. He does not speak of re¬ 
turning.” 

“ You mean that he will never come back ? ” 

“ It may be so,” I said. 

“ What money had he ? ” said Randal. 


302 


MARMADUKE 


“ We’ll talk of that presently,” I said. I was stu¬ 
pidly intent on procrastination. 

Helen said: “ I am entitled to know everything.” 

“ Yes,” I said, “ but will you forgive me if I don’t 
show you this now? I want to think about it. He 
writes intimately to me. Helen, he has gone away 
believing that it’s best for you and for the children. 
He thinks it well that he should disappear entirely 
from your lives. I don’t know whether he is capable 
of keeping to that. Perhaps not. But he is trying— 
trying-” 

She said: “ What horrible things are in that let¬ 
ter?” 

“ No, no,” I said. I handed it to her. She held 
it looking at me. I thought she was going to give 
it back to me, after the manner of stage magnanimities, 
but her curiosity prevailed, as well it might. She, in¬ 
deed, had the right to know. 

“But, what!” she cried. “He forged again?” 

“Forged!” said Randal. 

“ It’s a trifle—a trifle,” I said. “ He explains and 
I accept the explanation.” 

She read the letter through. She said: “ Yes, he 
has gone,” and then “ Poor Marmaduke! ” She shed 
tears and I was thankful for them. I took the letter 
from her and handed it to Randal. Before I read 
it I told them of Mr. Judson’s visit. “ What an old 
intriguer you are,” said Randal with a gallant, pathetic 
attempt at lightness. I thought: This must bring us 
together, not separate us. I have my children; I must 
have my children. 



MARMADUKE 303 

Helen said: “ Do you think forgery can be heredi¬ 
tary ? ” 

I could have laughed at her naive conceptions of 
science but I answered with a grave negative. “ And,” 
I continued, “this isn’t the same thing at all; you 
mustn’t regard this as forgery; it’s only that techni¬ 
cally. He knew that, at the last resort, I would gladly 
let him have the money. Yes, he knew that if this 
was his deliberate will I would let him have it for 
this purpose.” 

Randal said: “ What purpose ? ” 

I didn’t answer that. I read from the letter, taking 
it from Randal’s hands: “ I steal this money, then, 
from my friend, knowing him. Yes, I know you and 
you won’t be troubled by this technical offence. I play 
this mean trick because I think it’s the best way. I 
could not face the remonstrances, the persuasions. 
Perhaps I should have seen through them the fear 
that they might prevail.” 

“ Yes,” said Helen, “ he loves you best now.” 

“He has gone,” I said. “Perhaps he has not the 
power to keep away. I see something very strange 
and fine in the effort. This forgery is nothing.” 

“ What can he do ? ” said Randal. 

“ Why is it fine of him to desert us? ” said Helen. 

“ His line of least resistance is to stay on here,” 
I said. “ This house is the one effectual refuge in 
the world for him. I should never have turned him 
out. He knows that. His departure is a kind of sui¬ 
cide. If he comes back it’s a terrible failure.” 

“ It wouldn’t be his first failure,” Randal said. 


304 MARMADUKE 

“ You are bitter,” I said. “ You are less generous 
than usual.” 

“ Suicide! ” Helen said. 

And I was bitter too. I have my vein of cruelty 
even for those I love. “ He leaves you in peace,” I 
said. “ He leaves you your children. As Randal says, 
he can do nothing. He is totally incompetent.” 

“ Is that a virtue ? ” Randal said. 

I disdained to answer that. I felt estranged from 
them. I did not understand Helen. I see her some¬ 
times as an implacable woman. Randal, I suppose, 
resented his own failure to stem, to save, to guide. 

Helen said: “ Shall we know where he is ? Do you 
know where he has gone ? ” 

I shook my head. Then she said: “ Randy must be 
told everything some day.” 

Randal hesitated on his way out of the room. He 
stopped before me and said: “ I am sorry, Father.” 
I nodded and let him go. And then Helen came to 
me, inviting the caresses that I was hardly ready to 
give. “Have I done wrong?” she said. “Is it all 
my fault? Will you never forgive me? ” 

I held her in my arms. I was vaguely comforting 
but I was desolate and hurt. I acted the affectionate 
father something against the grain. My philosophy 
was not equal to the occasion. I should have been 
glad to give that queer kind of consolation, the appro¬ 
priate word, but I couldn’t think of it. I wanted to 
say that we suffered this together, but it wouldn’t have 
been true. She breathed again: “ Poor Marmaduke! ” 


MARMADUKE 305 

and I suspected an effort to placate me. Yet I was 
thankful, I was almost grateful for it. 

The children had long since gone to bed. I fol¬ 
lowed her upstairs to them. I wanted to see her with 
them, and I went with her from one room to the other. 
She looked at them earnestly, carefully. She adjusted 
their bedclothes, the windows and doors. She toler¬ 
ated my presence, forgot it, welcomed it. This was 
the centre of her life, and the other might have been 
a tale that was told. I was partly comforted; it 
seemed that reconciliation, a full tide of affection, 
might be before us. And had not Marmaduke known 
this? 


Chapter 19 


A nd so he went out into the dark; he vanished ut¬ 
terly. Was it merely a futile gesture? Would 
he return presently to discuss his failure in all its 
bearings? It is our way to connect renunciation with 
apotheosis. It’s disconcerting when it must be fol¬ 
lowed by degradation. What could Marmaduke do but 
sink and sink ? He had his eyes open. I tried to pur¬ 
sue his thought, to conceive something of his state 
of mind, and it hurt me sharply. It is the habit of 
the sceptic to assay, to review the motives. Was there 
some ignoble relief in getting away from us? Would 
he sink into vice, into crime? Would he starve? Or 
would he come halting back with all his poor vestiges 
of pride destroyed? What changes, doublings, were 
possible yet ? I didn’t want him to go away and I was 
afraid of his coming back. Yet sometimes I thought 
of going out to search for him as Mr. Peggotty went 
after Little Em’ly. It came upon me that he might 
want to be rescued, but I did not stir. I suppose I 
had formed my ideal of him, and the idealist is cruel. 

He never came back. We used to look out for him, 
to watch the road, to listen to the unexpected step. 
As time went on I felt safer; yes, safer. I wanted 
him and I exulted in his absence. In some dim way 
he had stuck it out. He had let us alone; and he 
had gone without resentment. I think he died very 
306 


MARMADUKE 


307 


soon; I have always ridiculed feelings in such a case, 
but I feel that he is dead. I have the ridiculous belief 
that I hold him complete; there is no bitterness left; 
I accept him now. 

I am thankful that my children are not estranged 
from me. All possibility of that has melted away. 
Helen is secure with her children. She leads them 
the way that they should go, the way that the others 
have gone. I might rebel sometimes against her as¬ 
surance, her placidity, but it seems that I do not. 
When Marmaduke passed into the limbo outside the 
ordinary life she had her period of sadness; even, 
I think, some luxury of grief. She is puzzled with 
me sometimes and doesn’t know what I want from her. 
She is ranged, she is of her world; all is for the best 
and an excellent Providence over all. She adheres 
to the pious legends and her children are well started 
in them. 

There have been times when I thought that my be¬ 
loved Helen was lost to me. I set it down with a 
kind of shame. I won’t pretend, I won’t smooth away; 
one must take things as they are. Perhaps it is better 
to die when your ideals are intact. Helen and I have 
come together again, and it is not because she answers 
all the demands of my strenuous life, but because I 
ask for less. I grow old, I cannot slight what I have. 
Yes, she’s inarticulate, she’s one of the great forces 
of nature; she’s not a pioneer, not a passionate spirit, 
but we are deeply united in affection. Perhaps Ran¬ 
dal could give me more of what I crave, but we have 
always been cautious with one another. His life is 


MARMADUKE 


308 

apart, it is beyond my ken. We are great friends and 
some day, when I have overcome my fear of being 
thought sentimental, I may know him better. And 
always there are my grandchildren. 

It was not till many months after Marmaduke had 
gone that I came upon his unfinished letter to Randy 
—“ to Randy at the age of ”—and then came a blank; 
he hadn’t decided what the age must be. The letter 
was like a rough draft, with erasures and substitu¬ 
tions, and it became fragmentary. He must have 
written it and abandoned it within a few days of his 
going away. He had stuffed it into the back of a 
drawer and left it there. 

My dear Randy,— 

When you read this I shall have been dead for 
years. You will nearly have forgotten me, but resent¬ 
ments live long. I think that sometimes you loved 
me. Let me think that. Sometimes I nearly hated 
you, and that was because I craved your affection. 
One doesn’t demand a passion from a little boy, but 
a father wants affection. 

I suppose I haven’t a case. I wasn’t a good mem¬ 
ber of society. Something was left out when I was 
made. But I’m writing as though to a child, and 
you’re not that now. What are you? A clean, im¬ 
placable young man ? Supercilious? Indulgent? An¬ 
ger surges over me as in those old days when you 
looked at me disapprovingly. You didn’t know about 
that and I think nobody knew. I might have struck 
you. I might have done something more stupid and 


MARMADUKE 


309 

violent than usual. But I was always in terror of 
alienating you, of spoiling my chances. I suppose Fve 
lived a reckless life, but Fve had my little canninesses. 
I’ve despised myself for them. 

Don’t think I’m reproaching you. You were a good 
little fellow, acting naturally. We used to get on fa¬ 
mously sometimes, didn’t we? Do you remember— 
I can only think of you as a little boy, as you are when 
I write this. 

I don’t know why I write. I have nothing to say. 
Fathers give their sons advice and incitement, but how 
could I do that to you? I’m not a Polonius. I’m an 
unknown quantity. I’m flighty, trivial, unstable. I 
suppose so. Fve done outrageous things wantonly. 
My punishment is just? Would you say that, you 
damned little prig? Perhaps there’s stupidity in jus¬ 
tice. 

I go away now. I trouble you no more. I leave 
you all and you’ll never see me again. I write sol¬ 
emnly, as a dying man might. Another of my tricks? 
If I can be solemn and serious why can’t I settle down 
and be a father to do you credit? It’s no use. I 
can’t keep it up. Do you think I haven’t tried? Let 
whoever made me take the blame. Do you believe 
in a Judgment Day? That old nonsense? I won’t 
submit tamely. But they’ll tell me I’m trivial and irrel¬ 
evant. Hard, smooth, regular things will roll over me. 

I know myself too well. There are times when Fve 
no mysteries left. I’m tired of myself. I’m tired of 
trying. I’m tired of constancy, of the world, of my 
life. Fve one tenacity. I shan’t come back. It would 


3io 


MARMADUKE 


be hateful, horrible to come back. I give up control. 
All my goodness will be wasted. I shall lose my nice¬ 
ties, become raffish, soon come to an end. I am all 
things—a fool, an ingrate, a martyr. I act like a mad¬ 
man and Fm dreadfully sane. I tell you everything 
and I tell you nothing. There is nothing. My poor 
boy, how can you understand—can you face—what’s 
the good ? 

And so it ended. 

I suppose I shall show this to Randy some day. I 
don’t know. I suppose it depends on what Randy is 
like. He may be a brisk, intelligent young fellow 
ready to interest himself in a curious document. I 
have queer resentments. He wrote this to Randy, not 
to me. I think I shall not show it to Helen; I must 
ask Randal’s advice. 

My memories of Marmaduke must fade. All things 
must fade or lose their life in rigidity. “ Poor fel¬ 
low,” people say, and if they heard of his death they 
would say it is a blessed release. To me it seems that 
a light has gone out of the world. Well, I shall dedi¬ 
cate my coming book to him. That’s a trifle, perhaps, 
but I hold to it; it gives me a queer kind of comfort. 
I revolve terms, I concoct grandiose, towering inscrip¬ 
tions, I try to get in words like “ heroical ” and “ gal¬ 
lant soul.” Why not? I can imagine Randal ridicul¬ 
ing them, but I am not sure that he would. I protest 
against all shallow sympathisers. “ IT 1 show them,” 
as the children say. He failed, certainly. I don’t care. 
We all fail. “ Let us but love each other,” he quoted 


MARMADUKE 


3 ii 

once. He was never sentimental, I think; he was even 
cynical as a boy. Yes, I’ll surprise them with that 
dedication. Can I mean that? Yes, and infinitely 
more. I wonder what Helen will say to it. I look 
forward to showing it to her. Not in reproach—oh, 
no!—but in deep, deep sympathy. I suppose I am a 
bit of a sentimentalist. Yet Marmaduke kept us alive, 
he got the best out of us; I shall never apologize for 
Marmaduke. 











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